LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf ...S.a.H-Y 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



TRAITS 



OF 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN 



BY 



GEORGE W. BUNGAY, 

AUTHOR OF "OFFHAND TAKINGS," "CRAYON SKETCHES," "PEN POR- 
TRAITS," "CREEDS OF THE BELLS," "NEBRASKA," ETC. 



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y.-..h..i.%..o yi 



■'^C^orm. 



NEW YORK : 
FOWLER & WELLS, PUBLISHERS, 

753 BROADWAY. 






^ -T/^a 



COPYRIGHT, 1882, BY 
GEORGE W. BUNGAY, 



EDWARD O. JENKINS, 

Printer and Stereotyper^ 
10 North William St. 






TO 

YOUNG MEN OF DEEDS AND IDEAS, 

WHO STRIVE TO ATTAIN 

STATIONS OF USEFULNESS AND HONOR, 

^hi$ Boofe 

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
BY THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

James Russell Lowell, 11 

Theodore Thomas, 26 

Wendell Phillips, 35 

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, . . . . . 44 

Rev. Dr. John Hall, 53 

Henry W. Longfellow, 58 

Thurlow Weed, . . . . . . . .75 

William M. Evarts, 82 

Cyrus W. Field, .89 

Thaddeus Stevens, 96 

Thomas C. Acton, 103 

Edwin Booth, 119 

Elihu Burritt, 126 

R. H. Stoddard, 136 

Eastman Johnson, 147 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, . . ... . . 154 

Charles J. Folger, . . . . •. . . ,173 

Frederick Douglas, 179 

Henry Bergh, 186 

Samuel R. Wells, . 196 

Rev. Dr. Elbert S. Porter, 203 



2 Contents. 

PAGE 

Charles Force Deems, 208 

RuFus Choate, 212 

Sir John A. Macdonald, 219 

Rev. David Swing, . 225 

Rev. Dr. Richard S. Storrs, 233 

Rev. Dr. Edward Eggleston, 241 

Rev. Morgan Dix, S.T.D., ....*. 238 

F. E. Spinner, . . . ■ 248 

Jacob M. Howard, .... . . . • 253 

Rev. John A. M. Chapman, 262 

Rev. Robert Collyer, . . . . . . 264 

Right Rev. John Travers Lewis, .... 271 

General U. S. Grant, 275 

Paul H. Hayne, 280 



INTRODUCTION 



In the following pages I have attempted to sketch a 
few of the prominent " men of the time," of the men who 
have distinguished themselves as poets, orators, phi- 
losophers, financiers, soldiers, statesmen, etc. I have 
only space for a small group of these representatives of 
active life. There are many others equally worthy of 
notice. The reader will find that industry, integrity 
and economy have won station and honor for not a few 
who began their career at the foot of the ladder; that 
men of good capacity, character and energy have risen 
from obscurity to high and responsible trusts, and in 
the race of life have distanced multitudes who had the 
'advantages of education, wealth and social position. 
This is not a book of biography, but of " pen and pen- 
cil pictures,-' and however inartistic they may be, the 
writer hopes the lesson they are intended to convey 
w^ll be of some little service, especially to the young. 
We are lookinsc for the '^ comino^ man." Has he come ? 
Is he in our schools, in our workshops, in our ware- 
houses, in public life? 

When I speak of the coming man, I refer to the 
average man of the near future, and not to some great 
genius who may rise in colossal strength, symmetrical 
and sun-crowned, the wonder and admiration of the age. 
I speak of a practical man, with a sound mind in a sound 

(3) 



4 Introduction. 

body, a man well organized physically, intellectually, 
morally, with his heart in the right place and his liead 
well poised, and I must add, with a conscience : that in- 
ner light which illuminates the life. 

As porcelain is clearer than common clay, so he will 
be transparently clear. He will have faults, for he will 
be human. The vase holding the most fragrant and 
beautiful flowers may have flaws, and dust may lodge 
upon its walls; but rain-drops no larger than tears can 
cleanse it, and when at last it is broken, it will retain 
some of its sweet odor. . ^ 

" Only the actions of the just 
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust." 

We can see in part what a man is, when we see what 
he is not. If a man is neither black, brown, red nor 
yellow, we conclude that he is white. Green is a tint 
that touches a man's character and not his cuticle, and 
the freshness suggested by it does not always indicate 
purity and sweetness. 

The model to which I refer will not be a fast man ; 
one who goes before he is sent — and where he is not 
sent. The fast man prefers the stable to the study, 
horses to humanity, the race-course to the course that 
improves the race. 

He does not like the slow process of earning his liv- 
ing by honest labor, so li-e gambles for it. He toils 
not, neither does he spin ; yet Solomon in all his glory 
never wore such watch seals and chains, such diamond- 
pins and gorgeous finger-rings, such flaming sleeve- 
buttons, and such brilliant bosora-stads. Look at his 
lily-color and "loud" necktie, his vest that rivals the 



Introduction. 5 

Stripes and Stars, and his fashionable coat that covers 
a multitude of sins. 

He thinks that hospitality means a man in a sulky 
behind a fast horse, sweeping the circle of a race-course. 
His paradise is a circus or heavenly hippodrome, where 
he can ride behind flying feet around a star-lighted ring. 
If he inherits a fortune, he wastes it living riotously, 
scattering it at haunts of pleasure and infamy, and 
along the broad way he travels — consequently, the fool 
and his money are soon parted. 

When his money is gone, his credit exhausted and 
his companions refuse to recognize him, he becomes a 
tramp, a pauper or a suicide. His life has been a sad 
failure. He has been fast, and he has gone with "the 
multitude to do evil " — and what has he to show for his 
waste of wealth and life ? 

He has not even invented a live horse with eight legs to 
increase the speed of the simpleton who copies his ex- 
ample. It is a rule with few exceptions, that those who 
make the most speed have the least to do, and their 
time as a commercial commodity is of the least value. 

Owing to miseducation and bad associates and the 
lack of the restraining influence of a good home, many 
of our rich young men develop into horse-jockeys. 
There are country as well as city boys who affect the 
airs and speech and dress of the fast man. They are 
fluent on matters relating to forbidden pleasures, but 
they know next to nothing about books. Life with 
them is bounded on the east by a trotting-road ; on the 
y^est by pleasure yachts ; on the north by a wine-party, 
and on the south by perdition. 

The Prince of Wales, on seeing a fop, exclaimed ; 



6 Introduction. 

" He dresses not wisely, but too well." There can be 
no objection to dressing with taste and neatness; in- 
deed, slovenliness shows a lack of good sense — it is 
closely allied to dirt ; but cleanliness is next to godliness. 
Beecher says only a fish can excel a man in the speed 
with which he can clothe himself. A plunge into his 
pantaloons — a dive into his vest and coat — and he swims 
out in society. 

A man is well-dressed when his dress attracts little or 
no attention. A dandy is something or nothing over- 
dressed. Pie is a cross between a masculine woman 
and a feminine man. His gloved hands are raised in 
protest against hard work. He values his head for 
what he puts on it and not for what he puts in it. Fine 
feathers will not make fine birds, neither will fine 
clothes make fine men. 

Glance at his dressing-room, and you will see a vast 
variety of fancy articles : boxes of collars, neckties of 
every shade and shape ; vests and coats and pants, suf- 
ficient to stock a country store ; scented cakes of soap, 
perfumed bottles of hair-oil, rouge and powder, corsets, 
Florida-water, ths balm of a thousand fiowers, boot- 
jacks, looking-glasses, eye-glasses and other glasses, but 
nothing to read worth reading. 

" He is a self-made man and worships his Creator " 
before the mirror; and there is no hypocrisy in his 
devotion. Upon the altar of his vanity he sacrifices 
his health and the respect of those whose admiration 
he courts. His dress, not his address, he uses as a pass- 
port to the society he seeks. 

Narcissus fell in love with his own image in the wa- 
ter, and became a daffodil ; but the dandy has not 



httroduciion. j 

sufficient decision of character to become even a tiger- 

lily. 

A pot-house politician, who leads people to the 
caucus which he stacks with the puppets that move 
when he pulls the wires; to the convention, which 
echoes with the voices of his dupes and dependents; 
to the ballot-box to cast the votes he has purchased 
with cheap promises, or forced by the use of threats of 
2>unishment, thinks he is the man that has come. 
Really, the demagogue is a driver and not a leader. At 
the private meeting and at the public gathering he 
cracks the whip over the victims harnessed to his 
chariot. 

With sulphury speech, he commands the poor cring- 
ing slave to vote for this man and not to vote for that 
man, to sustain this ticket and to oppose the other 
ticket. He seems to be saturated with the opinion that 
he is the man that's come ; that office was invented for 
his personal benefit; that parties were organized to 
guard him and to feed him at the public crib, at the 
public cost, and that votes are thrown away that are not 
at his disposal. He has plenty of cheek, but no con- 
science, no sensitiveness, no sense of honor. 

Here is a man whose face looks like the entrance to 
a whitened sepulchre, privately boasting that he car- 
ries in his breeches-pocket the wa'rd or the county in 
which he lives. He demands a nomination for the fat- 
test office within the domain of his influence. By fair 
means or by foul, he seeks to win the prize. With the 
temperance man he is jubilant in the praise of water, 
and he would be willing to invoke the aid of a flood 
to overwhelm and destroy all who will not vote for his 



8 Introduction. 

ticket. With the wine and beer drinker, he can drink 
and leave them under the table ; for he is somewhat 
like a churn, more stomach than brain, and the more 
he pours through that funnel, by courtesy called a 
throat, the firmer he stands. He is so familiar with 
bad spirits, they spare him — I may say, preserve him. 
He is sure of the vote that bears the odor of alcohol. 

Should he halt at the home of a pious family, he 
asks a blessing at the table, reads the Scriptures and 

takes the lead in family devotions, watching his d ns 

for fear they might betray him and cost him a constit- 
uency of Christians. 

At the card-table he drops the mask, and without dis- 
simulation enters heartily into the abandon of the 
place and the company he finds there. He can utter 
oaths as fat and unctuous as the pullets Sancho ladled 
from his soup-kettles. What he does not know about 
games of chance, is not worth the learning. He can 
beat even the heathen Chinee. 

After all comes the serious question. Is it safe to trust 
the reins of government in such hands? Do not such 
men betray their friends, like Judas, for a few pieces of 
silver? Are there not good men and true fit to bear 
the burdens and to wear the laurels of office ? We 
must have men to fill the posts of honor and labor un- 
der the State and National Governments. Give ns men 
of ability, whose true and honest character guarantees 
faithfulness. 

It is the bounden duty of every man to study the 
science of government according to his opportunities. 
A man can be a politician in the honored sense of 
that term, without being a rascal ; indeed, it is disloyalty 



Introduction. g 

to his race not to have opinions, and base cowardice not 
to stand by them. Give the impertinent, brass-faced 
demagogue notice that he can not control your vote, 
that your thought is not like thin tissue paper through 
which he can read the name upon your ballot. At the 
same time, unashamed of your patriotism and of your 
political sentiments, use the freedom of speech requi- 
site to defend and advance your views on the questions 
of the day. 

May the time soon come when truth shall thunder 
all around the horizon, and the lightning of law strike 
and paralyze the profane hand that touches with fraud 
that ark of the covenant, the ballot-box. 

Saul went out in search of his father's asses, and 
found himself a king. The selfish politician goes out 
in search of the crown and throne and scepter of office, 
to which he is not entitled ; and the people find a fraud 
who need not envy the donkey its redundancy of ear. 
Solomon speaks of braying a fool in a mortar, yet will 
not his folly depart from him. The political adventurer, 
when beaten in that mortar, the ballot-box, will continue 
to bray and to show his ears. 

There is iio eagle-nest so lofty this cock-sparrow will 
not attempt to reach it. He flits from house to house, and 
under the eaves listens for the sentiments of his neigh- 
bors. You may see him about election time hopping here 
and there to pick up crumbs of consolation and soft 
things with which to feather his nest ; and there is noth- 
ing that flies that can compare with him in putting in a 
bill, although he is nothing but a common home sparrow, 
and can not soar above the clouds to the lofty mountain 
crag where the eagle builds its eyrie of sticks and clay. 



10 Introduction. 

The coming man will have a sound body. We are 
all F.F.'s (first families), and can trace our genealogy to 
the first pair of parents. Adam and Eve were our an- 
cestors, and we all therefore have royal blood running 
in our veins ; but we have violated the physical laws, 
deranged our systems, making the blood thin and scrof- 
ulous, and in a thousand ways have been enfeebling 
and deforming the body. But with abstinence from im- 
proper food, and a knowledge of the laws of digestion, 
circulation and secretion, may come that physical per- 
fection which is the normal condition of the race. Sick- 
ness and disease, now the rule, will then be the excep- 
tion. Men will stand erect and show square shoulders, 
and their well-orbed heads will be handsomely balanced 
banks of brains over a good foundation, commanding an 
excellent circulation, without the interdiction of failure 
or the protest of dyspepsia and hypochondria. 

The following '' olf-hand " sketches show in some 
degree what men of industi'ious habits and resolute 
courage can accomplish. These men represent various 
phases of life, and some of them have risen to distinction 
in the face of the most adverse circumstances. 




JA3IES EUSSELL LOWELL. 



PLATE I, 



TRAITS OF 

REPRESENTATIVE MEN 



James Russell Lowell, 

POET AND STATESMAN. 

"Olympian "bards who sang, 
Divine ideas below, 
Which always find us young, 
And always keep us so." — Emekson. 

THE men of genius, who write verse or prose, are, 
as a rule, practical men. They can do something 
entirely different from writing, and do it well. Men 
endowed with talent can do what mediocre men can do, 
but they do it better. Men crowned with genius are 
God-like, because they are creators, and can do excel- 
lently well what common people can not do at all. 
They have been chaj-ged with building castles in the 
air — a more difficult task than that of the mason and 
hod-carrier who build on terrcb firma. Poets are not 
idle dreamers who see visions and do no substantial 
work. When they keep their appetites and passions 
in subjection, they can get along well without harness- 
ing Pegasus to a mud-cart. Palph Waldo Emerson was 
sifted through eight- generations of clergymen, and he, 
with a mind beautiful and refined, the inheritor of 
taste and exquisite sensibilities, could teach philosophy, 

(II) 



12 Representative Men. 

preacli the Gospel, describe traits of character in deli- 
cious prose, and sing in enchanting verse. Oliver 
Wendell Holmes is a fascinating lyceum lecturer, a 
physician, a magazine writer, an untiring literary 
worker, and a brilliant wit. Among the younger men 
who deservedly wear the laurel, I will name E. II. 
Stoddard, whose mantle seems to be starred with points 
of light from the Elizabethan era. He seems to be un- 
conscious of his fame and power as a true poet — a fact 
probably due to other attributes which he has developed 
as a critic, as an editor, as a compiler of books, and as 
a miscellaneous writer for the newspapers and monthlies. 
E. C. Stedman, author of "Yictorian Poets" and 
other works, and a contributor to Harjper's Monthly^ 
The Century., The Critic, and other fastidious and ex- 
acting publications, handles not only the pure gold of 
letters, but also the '' base " gold of commerce ; for he is 
a successful Wall Street broker and banker — and honor 
is written on every margin of his work. William Win- 
ter is a poet, and one of the best dramatic critics in 
America. I have written more than 1 intended to write 
on this topic. I merely wish to make a brief introduc- 
tion to a sketch of James Eussell Lowell, who is a 
poet of no mean order (see Stedman's splendid sketch 
of him in the May number of the Century Magazine., 
1882). He is a scholar whose attainments enable him 
to teach scholars, an eloquent speaker whose words are 
fitly spoken, a statesman whose diplomacy has flowered 
into fame. 

During a short residence at Boston I occasionally saw 
the poet, professor, and statesman ; he was then one of 
the stars in the brightest galaxy of New England. 



James Russell Lowell. 13 

Among these stars were Charles Samner, Wendell 
Phillips, Theodore Parker, Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
Henry W. Longfellow, William Lloyd Garrison, Josiah 
Quincj, James T. Fields, E. P. Whipple, and other lit- 
erary lights. Some of these have faded from our 
vision, but they shine in a higher sphere where the 
stars never lose their lustre, and where there are no 
clouds to curtain them from appreciative eyes. In this 
country we have, for several reasons, no poets who de- 
vote their time exclusively to the muses. Writing 
poetry is not lucrative employment. Once or twice in 
a lifetime, perhaps, some enterprising publisher may 
pay four guineas a line for a poem, the price paid by 
Bonner to Longfellow for his " Hanging of the Crane." 
Few of our literary men have the wealth which can 
afford the leisure favorable to the highest and best 
work of the mind in composition of prose or verse. 
Nearly all of them are busy, unsettled people, seeking 
something to do that will pay in dollars and cents, and 
pay at once. Bryant was the editor of the New York 
Evening Post; Longfellow was a professor in Cam- 
bridge University and the author of prose tales ; Hal- 
leck was a clerk in the service of John Jacob Astor ; 
Willis was a feuilletonist^ editor, sketcher, diner-out, 
and man of the world. 

The writing of poetry seems to have been taken up as 
a pastime by our most distinguished writers of verse. In 
England the men of letters, the representative men, 
give their time to the pursuit of literature, and the 
foremost men, like Tennyson, make it pay in pounds, 
shillings, and pence. The Laureate is a hard worker, 
and has made himself familiar with the writings of 



14 Representative Men. 

the best bards of Britain ; arid their coinage and obso- 
lete terms, with new interpretations, come to his pen 
like particles to a magnet, and the iire of his emotion 
fuses them into liquid and luminous poetry. His culti- 
vated ear catches the linest music of the old masters, 
and his exquisite art often passes for originality. The 
thought and feeling inspired by the study of Chaucer, 
Spencer, Shakespeare, and the early dramatists, appears 
in much of his work ; but it is seen in a new light, 
tinged with the color of his own imagination, but with 
the mint mark of the first stamp rubbed out by the la- 
borious and painstaking furbisher. Notwithstanding 
this, Tennyson is a true poet, perhaps a great one, cer- 
tainly the greatest of living Englishmen : and the laurel 
fits his forehead and becomes him, for he merits the 
wreath as prince of song in the empire of Her Majesty, 
Queen Victoria. 

Mr. Lowell, in his earlier efforts, unconsciously per- 
haps, occasionally gave us echoes of Tennyson, and like 
him wove old and obsolete words into the strands of 
his own excellent verse. Without the fear of the ghost 
of Dr. Sam. Johnson, he often invented new phrases, 
some of which were too poor to patent in the diction- 
aries. Tennyson has the art of concealing his art, for 
he plates the old gold with gold that is new. Although 
Lowell is a Yankee, and the master of its dialect, as 
seen in his " Bigelow Papers," there is a German-silver 
ring and coloring to many of his poems, obscuring the 
sound and beauty of the richer metal under it ; and yet 
he is, as he ought to be, recognized as a man of genius 
and a true poet. Like good wine, " that needs no 
bush," his genius improves by age. 



James Russell Lowell. 15 

The May number of the Century (18S2) has several 
poetic gems, but the JSTew York Tribune^ whose opin- 
ion is authority, says : "Mr. Lowell's delicate and grace- 
ful 'Estrangement' is by far the best." Here it is. It 
can speak and sing for itself : 

ESTRANGEMENT. 

The path from me to you that led, 

Untrodden long, with grass is grown — 

Mute carpet that his h'eges spread 
Before the Prince Oblivion, 

When he goes visiting the dead. 

And who are they, but who forget? 

You who my coming could surmise, 
Ere any hint of me as yet 

Warned other ears, and other eyes 
See the path blurred, without regret. 

But when I trace its windings sweet, 

With saddened steps at every spot 
That feels the memory in my feet, 

Each grass-blade turus forget-me-not, 
Where murmuring bees your name repeat. 

It is a long time since Tennyson has written anything 
so good as that. Mr. Lowell can look back on a learned 
ancestry, and, were he not void of conceit, he might 
boast of good blood and j)C)se for notoriety, but he 
shuns the public stare. Fame has crowned him with 
honor, not because of his birth and breeding, but be- 
cause he has the courage to consecrate and devote his 
learning and genius to the defense of humanity and the 
advancement of freedom. Although his father and his 
grandfather were orthodox clergymen, he leaped over 



1 6 Representative Men. 

the pale of the orthodox church when he was a very 
young man, and became a liberal in religion and pol- 
itics, and was a frequent attendant at the Music Hall 
in Boston, when Theodore Parker was the preacher. 
He was a Cambridge student, not over-studious, but 
fond of general literature, and bore away the palm as 
the author of the class poem, which was highly praised 
by the critics at the time of its delivery. Stedman says 
" some of his love poetry is exquisite." 

Here are lines which show a delicate fancy and a 
deep insight into the subject he presents, for his heart 
beats in his amatory poems : 

Not as all other women are 
Is she that to my soul is dear ; 
Her glorious fancies come from fiir, 
Beneath the silver evening star, 
And yet her heart is ever near. 

Great feelings hath she of her own, 
Which lesser souls may never know : 
God giveth tbem to her alone, 
And sweet they are, as any tone 
Wherewith the "wind may choose to blow. 

Yet in herself she dwelleth not, 
Although no home w^as half so fair ; 
No simplest duty is forgot. 
Life hath no dim and lowly spot 
That doth not in her sunshine share. 

I love her with a love as still 
As a broad river's peaceful might, 
Which, by high tower and lowly mill. 
Goes wandering at its own sweet will 
And yet doth ever flow aright. 



James Russell Lowell. 17 

And on its full, deep breast serene, 

Like quiet isles my duties lie ; 

It flows around them and between, 

And makes them fresh and fair and green, 

Sweet homes wherein to live and die. 

In his ^'Legend of Brittany" a knight falls in love 
with a maiden and betrays her; to conceal his crime he 
murders her and conceals the corpse behind the altar of 
the church. A mysterious power prevents his taking 
it away. "When the congregation is assembled, and the 
organ sounds, her voice is heard complaining that she 
has no rest in heaven, and the Knight Templar dies of 
remorse. Note this organ burst of music : 

Then swelled the organ up through choir and nave, 

The music trembled with an inward thrill 

Of bliss at its own grandeur: wave on wave 

Its flood of mellow thunder rose, until 

The hushed air shivered with the throb it gave : 

Then, poising for a moment, it stood still ; 

And sank and rose again, to burst in spra3' 

That wandered into silence far away. 

Deeper and deeper shudders shook the air, 

As the huge bass kept gathering heavily, 

Like thunder when it rouses in its lair, 

And with its hoarse growl shakes the low-hung sky. 

It grew up like a darkness everywhere, 

Filling the vast cathedral; suddenly, 

From the dense mass, a boy's clear treble broke 

Like lightning, and the full-toned choir awoke. 

Through gorgeous windows shone the sun aslant, 
Brimming the church with gold and purple mist — 
Meet atmosphere to bosom that rich chant, 
"Where fifty voices in one strand did twist 



!8 Representative Men. 

Their vari-colored tones, and left no want 
To the delighted soul, which sank abyssed 
In the warm nmsic cloud, while, far below, 
The organ heaved its surges to and fro. 

Poe said that this poem was "the noblest yet written 
by an American." 

Mr. Lowell is a genuine philanthropist. He sees 
humanity bleeding by the wayside, but he does not 
put the subject of his sympathy on the slow, dull don- 
key of common conditions, but upon the fa^-footed 
Pegasus of true poetry, and carries him to Helicon and 
the heights of Paniassus. His miscellaneous poems are 
sweet as windrows of newly mown hay. 

It's a mere wild rose-bud, 

Quite sallow now and dry. 

Yet there's something wondrous in it, 

Some gleams of days gone by. 

'^ The Yiolet " is sweet as the flower which bears that 
name. The words, "In the Fountain," have a liquid 
sound, like the plash of water drops. In " Kosaline " 
we have pictures that make the flesh creep and the hair 
stand erect. Beneath the thick stars he beholds the 
blue-eyed and bright-haired " Rosaline." Her hair was 
braided, as on the day they were to be wed, and the 
death-watch ticked behind the wall ; the wind moaned 
among the pines ; the leaves shivered on the trees ; 
strange sounds were in the air ; and her lifeless eyes 
gazed on him, while the mourners, with their long, 
black robes and nodding plumes passed by. By and by, 

The stars came out, and one by one. 
Each angel from his silver throne 



James Russell Lowell. 1 9 

Looked down and saw what I had done. 

I dared not hide me, Rosaline ; 

I crouched ; I feared thy corpse would cry 

Against me to God's quiet sky; 

I thought I saw the blue lips try 

To utter something, Rosaline. 

Then faces loved in infancy looked on him sorrow- 
fully, until his heart melted. 

Mr. Lowell is a true reformer, and the friend of 
human advancement. The Hon. Thomas Hughes made 
frequent quotations from the writings of Lowell, in the 
speeches he made in New York and Boston. 

Though born to affluence, Mr. Lowell was and is 
the friend of labor, and a brav^e soldier in the battle for 
freedom and justice. "He saw God stand upon the 
weaker side," and, scorning the gifts of fame and for- 
tune and political exaltation, he modestly joined the 
side of the slave and the oppressed. The spirit or 
sentiment of humanity led him to unite with Garrison, 
Phillips and Parker in the effort to put down and blot 
out American slavery. In his march of progress he 
had to step upon a good many snobs and political para- 
sites, who did not dream that there were shadowing 
wings of deliverance in the clouds that came over the 
nation during the war of the Rebellion. 

Like Whittier, Lowell is a poet of progress. *^ Re- 
form verse came naturally from the young idealist por- 
trayed by his friend Page. The broad collar and high- 
parted, flowing hair set off a handsome, eager face, with 
the look of Keats and the resolve of a Brook farmer." 
But there was never in his appearance nor in his apparel 
anything of the affectation and vanity of Oscar Wilde. 



20 Representative Men, 

He has been himself, and has never attempted to be any 
one else, nor to pass for more than he is worth. Stedman 
says : ^' The charm of Lowell's outdoor verse lies in its 
spontaneity ; he loves nature with a ehild-like joy, her 
boon companions finding, even in her illusions, welcome 

and relief It does rae good to see a poet who 

knows a bird or a flower as one friend knows another, 
yet loves it for itself alone." Where in the poetry of 
nature can be found anything finer than " The Dande- 
Hon"? 

Eead the following extract : 

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; 
The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, 

Who from the dark old troe 
Beside the door sang clearly all day long, 

And I secure in childish piety. 
Listened as if I heard an angel sing, 
With news from heaven which he could bring, 
Fresh every day to my untainted ears, 
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. 

Mr. Lowell was a young man of thirty when he 

wrote the " Bigelow Papers." He at that time stood 

by the side of the unpopular minority ; striking with 

his lance of satire the provokers and defenders of the 

Mexican w^ar. His words were " half battles " for the 

right. 

Ez fer war, I call it murder, 

There you hey it, plain and flat, 
I don't want to go no farder 

Than my Testyment fer that. 

And again : 

Ef you take a sword an dror it. 
An go stick a feller thru, 



James Russell Lowell. 21 

Guvmcnt aint to answer fer it, 
God'U send the bill to you I 

"When the apojogists for slavery selected trimmers 
for office, his poetic protest sent many of them sprawl- 
ing into the mire of dishonor : 

Guvener B. is a sensible man, 

He stays to his home, an looks arter his folks, 
He drors his furrer ez straight ez he can. 
An into nobody's tater-patch pokes. 
But John P. 
Robinson, he 
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. 

These quotations from memory are mere " windfalls," 
and do not give a fair sample of the fruit from the liv^- 
ing tree of his verse. The "Bigelow Papers" gave 
their author a reputation which soon ripened into fame 
at home and abroad. 

The prose works of Mr. Lowell — his essays, reviews, 
etc. — are lost in part in the white light of his verse, and 
yet, had he written nothing else, he would have been 
recognized as one of the best and most distinguished 
contributors to American literature. He is the bobo- 
link of song, and, like that bard of birds, that laureate 
of the meadows, sings the praise of liberty. His strain 
never chimed with the clank of chains. He prefers the 
green fields and clover meadows to the white planta- 
tion of cotton punctuated with black laborers. He is 
at home where the golden disc of the dandelion gleams 
in the grass, like the shield of a fairy : 

A poet and wit, full of pathos and fun, 

Who hides from our sight " the best work he has done ;*' 



22 Representative Men, 

His brave heart's a well, in wliicli the truth lies ; 
Words pity drops in, splash the spray in his eyes ; 
And when he looks to the future, he seems 
Like the dreamer of old, when he saw in his dreams 
A ladder that reached from the earth to the stars, 
And white angels that climbed on its golden bars. 
How sweet is the strain of his rhythmical words : — 
That are soft as the music of sweet-throated birds. 
His "Snow-fall," whose flakes fall so silent and white, 
Reminds us of darlings the grave hides from sight. 
We kiss through the lips of the living the dead. 
And bless the true poet, whose song we have read. 

Mr. Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 22, 
1819. His birthday is likely to be remembered as long 
as "Washington's. "Why not? He graduated at Har- 
vard College in 1838, and in 1839 recited his famous 
class poem. He studied law in Harvard University, 
and was admitted to the bar in 1840. He opened an 
office in Boston, but soon abandoned the profession of 
the law and devoted himself to literature. In 1843, in 
conjunction with Robert Carter, lately deceased, he 
commenced the publication of the Pioneer^ a literary 
and critical magazine. Only three numbers were is- 
sued, when it died ; it had not grown old enough to be 
damned. Among its contributors were Poe, Neal, 
Hawthorne, Story, Parsons, and others. But these 
distinguished writers of prose and verse failed to keep 
life in it for a single year, and it died before it could 
run alone, or even creep from one editorial chair to 
another. 

In 1839 Lowell made his first appearance as an author 
in the class poem which was recited at Cambridge. It 
was a composition enlivened with a vein of vigorous 



James Russell Lowell. 23 

and electrical wit. Two years afterward he published 
a volume of miscellaneous poems, entitled " A Year's 
Life." It was an impromptu affair, which tempted the 
reviewers to be sarcastic, and they made it the target of 
criticism and satire. With all its faults there were 
flashes of genius, revealing an appreciation and genuine 
love of nature, a suggestive mind and a kindling imag- 
ination. In 1844 he published a new volume, which 
manifested decided advancement in force of thought, 
and in beauty and purity of execution. His "Legend 
of Brittany," before referred to, is a masterpiece of 
composition, and is remarkable for its freshness and 
artistic finish. In 1845 his " Conversations on some 
of the Old Poets," came out in print. In 1848 he 
published his "Fable for Critics," wliich was soon fol- 
lowed by the "Bigelow Papers" and the "Vision of 
Sir Launfal," the latter a poem founded on the legend 
of the search for the Holy Grail (the cup out of which 
our Lord drank with His disciples at the last supper). 
In addition to this work Mr. Lowell performed con- 
siderable literary labor as a contributor to the magazines 
and as editor of the Pioneer, He was also for many 
years the associate editor of the Anti-Slavery Standard, 
and he was one of the most brilliant contributors to 
the North American Review^ and later the editor-in- 
chief of the Atlantic Monthly. In 1851 he visited 
Europe, returning the following year. In 1854-5 he 
delivered a course of twelve lectures on the " British 
Poets." In 1 855, on the resignation of Mr. Longfellow, 
he was appointed professor of modern languages and 
belle-lettres in Harvard College. To equip himself 
well for his task, he spent a year abroad. In 1856 he 



24 Representative Men. 

returned to his home in. Cambridge. From 1857 to 
1862 he edited the Atlantio Monthly. In 1863, asso- 
ciated with Charles Norton, he edited the North Amer- 
ican Review., retaining charge of it until 1872. The 
degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him in 1874 by 
the English University of Cambridge. His appointment 
as Minister to Spain, and afterward to England — where 
he still remains, as the representative of the United 
States at the Court of St. James (August, 1882) — re- 
flects credit upon the Presidential choice. 

The American people are justly proud of the poet- 
statesman. He is not only a man of letters, but a man 
of the world, and his knowledge of human nature and 
of public affairs is not confined to the limits of his li- 
brary. Moneyed ignorance, that lifts its proud head 
above modest worth, is fluent in its denunciation of 
"literary fellers," and sneers at eloquent utterance, 
vocal or written : but our popular and gifted represent- 
ative at the Court of St. James turns a deaf ear to the 
vulgar clamor, and steps to the front, wearing the laurel 
that will not fade; and the nobility of the mother-land 
listen reverently, and sometimes rapturously, to his 
eloquence; and the people generally honor him with 
their confidence and approval. 

Mr. Lowell is a representative American, who can 
look with pride upon his ancestry, which dates back to 
a period of nearly two centuries and a half. His grand- 
father was made a judge by General Washington, and 
he aided in framing the Constitution of Massachusetts 
in 1780, and moved the insertion of the Bill of Eights 
of that State, which declares that " all men are born 
free and equal." The father of the poet was for fifty 



James Russell Lowell. 25 

years the pastor of a leading cliurcli in Boston. The 
Lowell Institute and the City of Lowell take their 
names from his distinguished family. During the anti- 
slavery struggle, when it cost a vast deal to the man 
who dared to show sympathy for the negro toiling in 
chains under the lash, he said ; 

They are slaves who dare not choose 

Wrong and hatred and abuse, 

Rather than in silence shrink 

From the truth they needs must think ; 

They are slaves who dare not be 

In the right with two or three. 

Our poet-statesman's splendid ideality does not run 
away with his reason. His judgment keeps pace with 
his imagination, and the common sense in his speeches 
and diplomatic correspondence is none the less attract- 
ive because it appears in clear, compact and elegant 
language, with the side-light of genius shining upon it. 



Theodore Thomas, 

MASTER OF MUSIC, AND CONDUCTOR. 



THOMAS'S BATON. 



Thine, too, the genius of the rod 

"Which cleft the sea in twain, 
When Israel walked between, dry-shod, 

And all her foes were slain : 
Care-freed, we walk the way she trod, 

Through Music's conquered main. 

Strange wand, with wondrous power imbued, 

Teach me thy magic ways ; 
Serve mine, as thy great Master's, mood. 

And sounds of Heaven raise ! 
I take thee up, thou art but wood. 

And mockest at my praise. 

— C. H. C, in N. T. Tribune. 

TO bring harmony and melody from a chorus of three 
thousand voices and an orchestra of three hundred 
instruments, is a marvelous achievement. To place the 
varied tones, vocal and mechanical, so that all will re- 
spond to the manipulations of the leader, as though a 
vast organ yielded to the magic of his touch, seems to 
be an exhibition of miraculous power. A spectator 
like the writer, who knows little of music, and who is 
unfamiliar with its technical terms, finds great difiiculty 
in an attempt to sketch the festival lately witnessed in 
the Seventh Eegiment Armory. It puts to the blush 
the tactics of the best disciplined army, or the most skill- 
ful management of a fleet ; and it certainly requires as 

(26) 




THEODORE THOMAS. 



Theodore Thomas, 27 

much force of will, as it does to govern a common- 
wealth. A large number of men and women of differ- 
ent degrees of culture and ability have to be drilled 
and schooled and toned at rehearsals until their variant 
voices are fused in perfect accord, so that the most del- 
icate ear would would fail to discover a discordant note. 
No matter how great the social spaces between the sing- 
ers, how high or low their intellectual status, how small 
or large their educational advantages, how sweet or 
unsavory their moral attributes, how attractive or 
coarse their personal appearance, they must all be cast 
in the mould of perfect melody, and made to utter in 
song the thoughts and feelings of the master who wrote 
the music, as though one man had voiced the combined 
sentiment of the entire chorus in the most artistic 
expression. 

The New York Musical Festival was the grandest 
event of its kind ever witnessed on this continent. It 
was to all previous concerts what Niagara, with its bow 
in the cloud, its silver spray, its broad sweep of the 
tumultuous, yet symmetrical waves and musical thunder, 
is to a brook running down the hillside. The former 
unites the subhme and beautiful in a chorus of billows 
that run the gamut of the rocks, and fall and rise in 
obedience to the law of the great Master, who holds 
the waters in the hollow of his hand : the latter sparkles 
in the light, and its sound is sweet and charming, but 
it is duplicated a thousand times, and ceases to excite 
intense admiration and wonder. 

The Thomas Festival was colossal, comprehensive,- 
and skillfully constructed from several schools of mu- 
sical composition, showing delicate discrimination in 



28 Representative Men. 

the choice of its materials. The four evening and 
three afternoon performances, choral, vocal, and in- 
strumental, v^ere all skillfully and artistically executed, 
reflecting the highest honor upon all who participated 
in the exercises. The J^few York Chorus, the Brook- 
lyn Philharmonic, the Handel and Haydn Society o£ 
Boston, the Worcester County Association, the Cecilian 
Society of Philadelphia, the Baltimore Oratorio, and 
the Reading Choral, made a total of more than three 
thousand trained voices. 

The orchestra numbered three hundred selected play- 
ers. The large platform was erected under the super- 
vision of Mr. Wrey Mould, who fitted it with excellent 
acoustic effect. It sloped upward in steps with double 
floors, and reached to the wall of the Armory. Under 
it was a monster organ, built for the occasion. Its key- 
board was in front of the conductor's desk, and was 
manipulated by the application of electricity. Mr. 
Dudley Buck, whose name is familiar to musicians, 
performed the duties of organist, and, if unseen by the 
spectators, he was certainly heard with appreciative rec- 
ognition. There are but few men who can be out of 
sight, and yet not out of mind. He can not conceal 
himself from praise, for his works follow him. 

Among other lights revolving about Theodore 
Thomas, the central sun of the musical firmament, 
were Miss Emily Winant, the famous contralto ; Miss 
Hattie Schell, a sonorous soprano, from the West ; 
Miss Antonia Henne, a genuine artist from Cincinnati ; 
Mrs. E. Aline Osgood, the best soprano that Boston can 
boast of ; Miss Annie Louise Carey, a lady of renown, 
who has had the advantages that the first and best mu- 



Theodore Thomas. 29 

sical schools of Europe can give ; Madam Etelka Gers- 
ter, the sweet singer from Hungary ; and that queen of 
song, of world-wide fame, Frau Amelia Materna. Among 
the gentlemen who contributed greatly to the enrich- 
ment of the entertainment were Signer Italo Campa- 
nini, Signer Antonio Faentini Galassi, Mr. Myron 
W. Whitney, Herr Wilhelm Candidus, Mr. Franz 
Kemmertz, Mr. George Henschell, Mr. T. J. Toedt, 
and Mr. Oscar Stern. 

Facing the musicians and singers stood Theodore 
Thomas, swaying his baton, and now and then giving 
emphasis to his direction by rapping nervously on the 
music-stand. During the rehearsals he frequently in- 
terjected little speeches, sometimes critical, sometimes 
complimentary. When thoroughly aroused and deter- 
mined to keep the chorus up to the lofty level of his 
plane of excellence, he would break out in a sort of 
wild Indian war-whoop, swinging his stick like mad, 
and driving the choir along up and up the steeps of 
sound into the hills and mountains of sublime expres- 
sion, higher and higher, until their voices seemed to 
penetrate the heavens. When an impatient or unman- 
nerly person whispered loud enough to be heard by 
him, or disturbed the audience by leaving before ad- 
journment, he did not hesitate to rebuke him publicly — 
and he can say sharp things to such flats when he is an- 
noyed and made angry by their inharmonious and dis- 
cordant behavior. 

The following biographical sketch is from the Mu- 
sio and Drama, edited by Mr. John 0. Freund : 

V In the year 1841 a child violinist made bis debut in the Con- 
ccrt-Siial of the city of Hanover, Germany, before a large and 



30 Repj'esentative Men 

intelligent audience. The first ai^pearance of this boy, then but 
six years old, created much merriment, because the violin he 
held in bis little fingers was scarcely smaller than its owner. 
The humor of the audience, however, soon changed to astonish- 
ment, as his playing revealed a wonderful technique. His face 
exhibited an earnest expression, as well as unusual will-power, 
both of which indicated a determination to devote himself with 
ardor to the divine art. It may be said here that this boy was 
no other than Theodore Thomas. 

His father was a violinist of some reputation, and naturally 
had given him a certain amount of elementary instruction; but 
the Thomas family being in somewhat limited circumstances, 
the father could not devote to this promising son that attention 
so desirable and necessary. Notwithstanding the boy's tender 
age, he studied by'himself, not only hours, but entire days, and 
thus made as rapid progress as was possible under the cir- 
cumstances. 

In 1845 the family emigrated to the United States. A few 
months afterward Theodore Thomas appeared in a number of 
concerts in Kew York, these concerts covering a space of two 
years. He achieved a great success as a soloist, by which means 
his name first began to be known to the musical public of the 
country. From New York he went South, traveling until 1851. 
On his return to the metropolis he obtained equal success as 
formerly. During the La Grange Opera season he was selected 
leader of the orchestra, under the conductorshif) of Arditi, at the 
Academy of Music. 

From this time up to 1861 he filled the positions of leader and 
conductor in various German and Italian troupes, among whom 
were such celebrities as Jenny Lind, Sontag, Grisi, Mario, etc. 
In 1861 he severed his connection with the theatre. As early as 
1855 Mr. Thomas, in conjunction with Wm. Mason, Jos. Mosen- 
thal, Geo. Matzka, and Carl Bergmann, had begun his memorable 
chamber music concerts, which were continued until 1869 (Fred. 
Bcrgner taking the place of Bergmann in 1861). These unique 
concerts did much toward promoting the taste for sterling art- 
works in this country and all the more deserved commendation 
from the fact that financial success was a secondary and never- 



Theodore Thomas. 31 

attained aim. During the winter of 1862-3 the Brooklyn Philhar- 
monic Society elected Mr. Thomas as conductor, a position he 
has held almost uninterruptedly up to the present time. In 1864- 
5 he gave his first series of Symphony Concerts, and, though at 
first they were but moderately successful in a pecuniary sense, 
they were greatly enjoyed, and continued up to 1869. For three 
years they were abandoned, to be resumed again, however, in 
1872, and this by request of numerous influential citizens, and 
were only discontinued in 1878, when Mr. Thomas left New York 
to become director of the Cincinnati College of Music. 

We must not forget to state that in 1866, in order to secure 
that perfection of execution which an orchestra can only attain 
by constantly practising together, Mr. Thomas inaugurated his 
nightly Summer concerts, given sometimes in one locality, some- 
times in another, chiefly, however, at the old'Ccntral Park Gar- 
den. In 1869 his first concert tour was made through the East- 
ern and Western States, with an orchestra of only forty members, 
a year or so afterward increased to sixty performers. 

After Theodore Thomas had been at Cincinnati for the period 
of one year, he was unanimously re-elected conductor of the New 
York Philharmonic Society, which position he had filled dur- 
ing the season of 1877-78, and which he has since held with the 
most remarkable success. Five great Musical Festivals have al- 
ready been given under his direction at Cincinnati, to which are 
soon to be added the three immense May Festivals of the present 
year ; the first one in New York, the second in Cincinnati, and 
the third in Chicago. 

Those only who have seen Theodore Thomas in his studio, or 
who have attended his private orchestral rehearsals, can fully ap- 
preciate his rare qualities as a conductor. First and^ foremost 
may be mentioned his great gift for drilling large bodies of 
voices or instruments. He has that personal magnetism which 
commands attention, and which secures the admiration of every 
one who performs under his direction. Those who attend and 
enjoy his concerts are always astonished at the wonderful precis- 
ion attained, and the complete command he exhibits over the 
performers. He waves his baton gracefully, while his face, un- 
seen by the public, is full of animation, and his varying expres- 



32 Representative Men. 

sions sbow that his whole soul is entirely in unison with the 
work in hand. 

It may be here remarked that even before the first rehearsal of 
a new work, Mr. Thomas knows the score by heart, and can thus 
devote his undivided attention to bringing out its poetic mean- 
ing. Because of this knowledge attained beforehand, he is en- 
abled to fully control each player, who comprehends and instinct- 
ively realizes the concej^tions of his chief. Furthermore, his 
rare musical organization is displayed in his innate sense of 
tone, color, and effect. 

It will readily be understood that the trials of Mr. Thomas 
have been of no ordinary kind. He has worked and toiled for 
the cause of music as an old and prominent member of the New 
York Philharmonic Society. His programmes have invariably 
displayed his broad', cosmopolitan taste, always including interest- 
ing novelties. That his endeavor has always been to educate and 
elevate the musical taste of the public goes without saying, 
and, because of his tenacious perseverance in this direction, it 
may truly be asserted that he has done more than any other 
single person for the progress of the divine art in this country. 
Theodore Thomas is known as a straightforward man. He has 
never trifled with his gifts or sacrificed art to gratify personal 
ambition. He has consecrated himself to a noble cause, but has 
always kept the great musical future of America steadfastly in 
view. 

Mr. Thomas has great physical power, which is 
indicated by his broad bnild and deep chest — hence his 
unyielding endnrance. The conformation of his head 
shows a brain-will that can be worked to advantage as 
long as the blood-power is sufficient to keep it running. 
The lineaments of the face portray the peculiarities of the 
man as plainly as notes do the nature of written music. 
He is brave as a lion, and would make a good general — 
indeed, he was born to command. He is very much in 
earnest, and it will not do to trifle with him. Pie will stand 



Theodore Thomas. 33 

a joke, even against himself, for lie overflows with wit 
and humor ; but he will not suffer that rude, coarse liberty 
which is closely allied to impertinence. There is no 
foppishness in his make-up, and if he wears " a full- 
dress " he omits whatever approximates to dandyism, 
and, like all men of superior talent — shall I say genius \ — 
he never assumes airs of arrogance and conceit, which 
are the leading features of little minds. He is deserv- 
edly popular, for he has done, and is doing, more to 
elevate and educate a refined taste for music in this 
country than any other man has done or can do. When 
he first became a leader, we as a people were wander- 
ing in the dry desert of monotonous notes, with here 
and there an exceptional oasis of song ; in the church, 
in the opera, in the concert-room, fine voices were not 
lacking, readers of difficult music abounded, and writers 
of music won wide renown ; but these various develop- 
ments of cultivated taste and artistic skill were not sys- 
tematized and organized into a force like that which 
now takes our towns and cities by storm. Like another 
conductor, who smote the rock with his baton and 
brought out the sweet chorus of flowing waters, our 
leader has made a miraculous change in what was the 
dreary waste of this part of the world, and we hear the 
liquid sweep of vocal and instrumental music, which 
has culminated in the greatest and grandest musical 
festival of the century. A description of the choir 
would be a difficult task. The gentlemen generally 
appeared in full-dress, and the ladies, arrayed in silks 
and satins, ribbons and laces, were more beautiful than 
Solomon in all his glory. Tier above tier were sopra- 
nos, contraltos, altos — human flowers, endowed with 
2* 



34 Representative Men. 

the gifts and graces of song. When they arose in obe- 
dience to the baton, they seemed like banks of lilies, 
violets, and roses swayed by the wind. 

" Or is thy sweep like scythes that play 

When all the meadows ring, 
And dying blade and blossom gay 

Give sweetest offering ? 
So sweetness springs when thou dost sway 

Each voice and trembling string." 

Old Straduarius made violins and prayed over his 
work. The accomplished artists who controlled " the 
stringed instniments,'' held them to their bosoms affec- 
tionately, as though they would have their hearts chord 
with their sweetest strains. The true artist steeps his 
soul and heart in music. Flitting from point to point 
to encourage and sustain the singers, were Mr. Thomas' 
lieutenants, C. Mortimer Wiske and William G. Die- 
trich : the former, an organist and conductor of excellent 
repute, the organizer of the Amphion Musical Society, 
and the conductor of the Eastern District branch of the 
Philharmonic Society ; the latter, a noted chorus mas- 
ter and musical director. 

The success of the grand musical event of the century 
in this country is due mainly to the skill and genius of 
the conductor. Without his leadership, the festival 
would have been a failure. He was the inspiring soul 
that gave life and motion to the entertainment. "He 
came, he saw, he conquered." He made the most care- 
ful preparation, looking with fastidious nicety after the 
minutest details. He disciplined and massed his nmsical 
forces and, swinging his baton in the charmed sir, led 
his vocal and instrumental army to triumphant victory. 




WENDELL PHILLIPS. 



PLATE III. 



V^ENDELL Phillips, 

THE ORATOR, AGITATOR, REFORMER. 



'* Men who their duties know, 

But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain, 
Prevent tlie long aimed blow, 

And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain, 
These constitute a state." — Sib William Jones. 

WENDELL PHILLIPS is now, in this blessed year 
1882, and he has been for more than forty years, 
one of the most polished, graceful, and eloquent orators 
in the United States. Doctor Lord, the historical lect- 
urer, said that Cicero, the famous Roman, was (in his 
judgment) personally, and in his intellectual make-up, 
somewhat like Wendell Phillips. He has been compar- 
ed with Gladstone, the leader of advanced statesmanship 
in England. They were both " well-born " (all who are 
born well, are well-born) ; both well trained in the best 
universities; both have had the best opportunities for 
reading, study, culture, and the practice of public 
speaking ; both are men of fine physical development 
and of handsome presence ; they are both brave enough 
to announce their sentiments in the teeth and eyes of 
an adverse public opinion. What they say is consid- 
ered of sufficient importance to command the attention 
of two continents, and to be carried on the electric 
wire under the sea, across the continent, and around 

the civilized world. 

(35) 



36 Representative Men. 

To multitudes, this gifted and famous man is known 
only as an anti-slaverj agitator, a labor reformer, and a 
radical on all questions touching human rights. Thej 
never hear or see him with aesthetic eyes. Without at- 
tempting to defend his views and " notions," some of 
which are indefensible, I shall refer "to the bright- 
ness of the sun of his fame, and not attempt to analyze 
its spots." Men are educated and influenced in part 
by their surroundings and associations; I may add, 
they are inspired by the atmosphere and scenery that 
surrounds them, and their souls, so to speak, are sculpt- 
ured into shape by the institutions which environ them. 
England made Cromwell, and he made his motto : 
" Put your trust in God, and keep your powder dry." 
He was the son of a brewer, but he was not indebted 
to any movement or fermentation in the vats for his 
rise in the world. Recent events show that the pas- 
sage from the mash-tub to the House of Peers is a short 
one. Cromwell strided from the common people to the 
court and to the throne, and stood in .proud defiance 
among the crowned heads — a democratic ruler, with 
John Milton, the poet, for his private secretary. Ba- 
con, the philosopher, Shakespeare, the dramatist, Bun- 
yan, the dreamer, Newton, the astronomer, were the 
products of dear old England, the '^ mother of mighty 
men." Yon Humboldt was born in Germany, and he 
seems to have been imbued with the spirit of his native 
land. O'Connell was alive with Irish fire ; John Knox 
was hard and rough as the hills of Scotland. Phillips 
represents JSTew England, the Scotia of this continent. 
" Blood will tell," not blue blood alone, for that may 
be poisoned with the "king's evil." When you find 



Wendell Phillips. 37 

an orator, a poet, an artist, an inventor, a mountainous 
man, in the church, in college, or in Congress or else- 
where, you will be sure to find that his environments, 
his associations, his surroundings have aided vastly in his 
development. Some men are so large that the whole 
country is needed for the scaffolding on which events 
are the artists that sculpture them into useful form and 
attractive symmetry. As a rule, behind such men — it 
may be, many generations back of them — you will see 
the dim shadow of a noble father or mother pointing 
toward them. Theodore Parker said : "The spirit that 
sent the ancestors of Phillips in the Mayflower to Plym- 
outh, flames out in his electric speeches. A pilgrim in 
England points to him as the impulsive son of a stub- 
born sire." 

The Puritan pluck is manifested in his maiden speech 
in Faneuil Hall, JS'ovember Yth, 1837. The Kev. E. P. 
Lovejoy had been murdered by a mob at Alton, Illinois, 
where he was defending his printing press — a machine 
dreaded and hated by selfish, corrupt, and villainous 
men. Dr. Channing called an indignation meeting in 
the " old cradle of liberty." James T. Austin, the At- 
torney-General of the State of Massachusetts, apolo- 
gized for the bloody deed of the mob, and said that 
Lovejoy was presumptuous and imprudent, and that 
" he died as the fool dieth." Wendell Phillips., then a 
young man fresh from college, replied to the vindicator 
of mob violence. I can only give sparkles from his 
speech. "Fellow-citizens," said he, "is this Faneuil 
Hall doctrine ? The mob at Alton were met to wrest 
from a citizen his just rights — met to resist the laws. 
We have been told that our fathers did the same, and 



38 Representative Men, 

the glorious mantle of revolutionary precedent has been 
thrown over the mobs of our day ! Sir, when I heard 
the gentleman lay down principles which place the 
murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and 
Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those 
pictured lips (pointing to the portraits in the hall) 
would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant 
American, the slanderer of the dead. (Great sensa- 
tion and applause). The gentleman said that he should 
sink into insignificance if he dared to gainsay the 
principles of these resolutions. Sir, for the sentiments 
he has uttered on soil consecrated by the prayers of Pur- 
itans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have 
yawned and swallowed him. James Otis thundered in 
this hall, when the king did but touch his pocket. 
Imagine, if you can, his indignant eloquence had En- 
gland offered to put a gag upon his lips." The writer 
was living in the city of Boston, at the time of the sur- 
render of the fu2^itive slave Sims to his Southern mas- 
ter. He saw the chain around the court-house, and the 
judge who stooped and crept under it to order the exe- 
cution of the infamous deed of sending the unfortunate 
negro from freedom back to bondage. He saw Theo- 
dore Parker and Wendell Phillips, arm-in-arm, at the 
door of the court of justice, importuning for the rights 
of man, and protesting against the insult to liberty. 
Speaking of Justice Shaw, some time after the cruel 
event of returning the fugitive to his master, our orator 
said : '* Did he not know that he was making history that 
hour, when the Chief-Justice of the Commonwealth en- 
tered his own court bowing down like a criminal, be- 
neath a chain four feet from the soil % " In the same 



Wendell Phillips. 39 

speech, he said of Kobert Kantoul : " I know not how 
erect he may stand hereafter, but I am. willing to give 
him good credit in the future, so well paid has been 
this, his first bill of exchange. He has done at least 
his duty to the constituency he represented. He looked 
North for his instructions. The time has been when 
no Massachusetts representative looked North ; we only 
saw their backs. They have always looked to the 
Southern Cross ; they never turned their eyes to the 
North Star." 

This prince of orators has just passed his seventieth 
year, but he retains the fire of his meridian splendor, 
and holds the throne that lifts him above every politi- 
cal speaker in this country. In a recent speech deliv- 
ered before the elite and literati of Cambridge and 
Boston, in Harvard University, he made those classic 
halls ring with golden speech. His unpopular pets 
were arrayed in all the splendid diction at his com- 
mand. He was listened to with mingled feelings of 
delight, astonishment, surprise, and anger, while he 
forged his thunderbolts, and hurled them at the oppo- 
nents of woman's rights, of an inflated currency, of la- 
bor reform, and of Irish agitations, etc., etc. He pours 
new wine into old bottles on purpose to bring about an 
explosion, and patches worn-out garments with new 
cloth of many colors, to make them ridiculous when 
worn by the sages of conservatism. This sort of work 
could not be continued with success by an ill-looking, 
ignorant, and coarse man. 

Mr. Phillips is a scholar, and a man of great talent — 
shall I say genius? He has a pleasant voice, which 
rings out like a triimpet when played upon by his va- 



40 Representative Men. 

ried thought and feeling. He has also a fine face, a 
good figure, and he is master of the most graceful elo- 
cution. Even when we do not like the tune, w^e are 
charmed by the beauty and sound of the instrument. 
I should add here that he has a brave and fiery spirit — 
that he is the Hotspur of rebellion against many of the 
old customs enthroned in society. He is an iconoclast 
who spares no image that hinders him in his progres- 
sive march. He seems to have a " cranky " wish to be 
prominent on the losing side of a cause or a contro- 
versy. His sympathies are not only with the " under 
dog ill the fight," but he would shelter the dog that is 
mad. He loves " a shining mark," and being a good 
shot, he is pretty snre to hit the " bull's-eye." His 
target may be the administration, or a political organiza- 
tion, or the church, or some moral reform. When he 
goes a-hunting for human game he attempts to bj'ing 
down some of the tallest men, and would not be satis- 
fied if he did not bag a president, a major-general, or a 
Cabinet minister. He makes war with the judiciary, the 
police, the army, the navy, the city corporation, the leg- 
islature, the club — and any head lifted above the crowd 
stands the risk of getting a- black eye, or a broken nose. 
Mr. Phillips is a native of Boston, the " American 
Athens." Some one said that a man born in Boston 
need not be born again, and it has been hinted that a 
graduate of Harvard needs no additional intelligence, 
but the silver-tongued hero of this brief and imperfect 
sketch has the gift which universities can not bestow, 
the current coin of true eloquence, that no one can 
counterfeit and pass off as genuine in the presence of a 
discriminating public. " He does not go to the lamp of 



Wendell Phillips. 4 1 

the old schools to light his torch, but dips it into the 
sun," which shines for all and fills the common atmos- 
phere with light and heat. He is tall and symmetrical. 
His face shows earnestness, refinement, and culture; 
head large, with a ^xi^ front; eyes of a bluish-gray 
color ; hair, once auburn, now white. He has the air, 
look, and carriage of a gentleman. Before an audience 
he has the self-poise and steadiness of nerve wdiich 
arise not from self-esteem, but from calm courage and 
long experience as a public speaker, and, perhaps 1 
should add, from a thorough knowledge of his side of 
the question, for he prepares his speeches carefully, al- 
though when he airs them they have not the " smell of 
the lamp, nor the haziness of its smoke." 

James Russell Lowell, who is about ten years the 
junior of Wendell Phillips, pays him this lasting 
compliment : 

"He stood upon the world's broad threshold ; wide 
The din of battle and of slaughter rose ; 
He saw God stand upon the weaker side, 
That sank in seeming loss before its foes. 
Many there were who made great haste and sold 
Unto the cunning enemy their swords. 
He scorned their gifts of fame, and power, and gold, 
And underneath their soft and flowery words 
Heard the cold serpent hiss; therefore he went 
And humbly joined him to the weaker part, 
Fanatic named and fool, yet well content 
So he could be the nearer to God's heart, 
And feel its solemn pulses sending blood 
Through all the wide-spread veins of endless good." 

An heir of wealth, he has nevertheless, for forty years, 
been most of the time on the unpopular side of the great 



42 Representative Men. 

questions of the day. He has been hooted at in the streets 
and at conventions as a fanatic. Mobs, whose arguments 
are usually unmerchantable eggs and paving-stones, have 
shown their hatred of him by their hisses and sulphury 
speech. The press, while acknowledging his power as 
a speaker, and his skill in the use of logic and eloquence, 
has, with but rare exceptions, denounced him as a chronic 
fault-finder and scold. A few years ago the writer met 
him at a convention in the city of Albany, and urged 
him not to go to a " certain " city to keep an appoint- 
ment — a woman's rights meeting, I think it was — be- 
cause a mob had been organized to give him a hostile 
reception. " Oh, I shall go," said he ; ^' such a greeting 
as you refer to would be refreshing ; it is a long time 
since I have enjoyed the honor of being entertained by 
a mob." 

It seems to me that Mr. Phillips' obstinate opposition 
to the best efforts of some of our best men in the church 
and out of it has hindered his usefulness. Without 
sacrificing his principles, or even modifying his hatred 
of oppression, he might have used the expediency of 
Luther and made himself the master and leader of a 
great political party. 

A few words in closing with reference to his birth 
and accomplishments. He was born in Boston, Novem- 
ber 29th, 1811, and graduated at Harvard University in 
1831, at the law school in 1833, and was admitted to 
the bar the following year. In 1836 he united with the 
abolitionists, and from, the first was its most eloquent 
exponent. From a disinclination to observe the oath 
of fealty to the Federal Constitution, he relinquished 
the practice of law in 1839. Until 1861 he advocated 



Wendell Phillips. 43 

disunion as the most effective plan to secure the free- 
dom of the slaves of the Southern States. At the 
breaking out of the rebellion he sustained the Govern- 
ment with the same object in view. In 1863-4 he ad- 
vocated, with great force, the arming, educating, and 
enfranchising the freedmen, and, for the two last- 
named purposes, he continued the organization of the 
Anti-Slavery Society till after the adoption of the fif- 
teenth amendment in 1869. In 1870 he was the tem- 
perance and labor reform candidate for Governor of 
Massachusetts, receiving about 20,000 votes. In 1875 
he made old Faneuil Hall ring with a speech in defense 
of the Louisiana policy of Gen. Grant. 

He is very much opposed to capital punishment, and 
considered the hanging of the assassin Guiteau a crime. 

I have lately seen a portrait of Mr. Phillips, as he ap- 
peared in his prime. One looking at his amiable face, 
lit as it is with smiling eyes, would not dream that he 
could say bitter words that would bite and sting 
long after they had been uttered. The face is hand- 
some, but it covers a volcanic nature, and the pleas- 
ant lips easily break into invectives of wrath against 
vice and oppression. His countenance shows cult- 
ure and refinement. His Firmness looms up into 
stubbornness, and he has Ideality enough to stock half 
a dozen minor poets with imagery and illustration. 
He will be remembered as the champion of human lib- 
erty who claimed the right to call oppressors to an ac- 
count at the bar of public opinion. 



Henry "Ward Beecher, 

ORATOR, AND ANALYST OF HUMAN NATURE, 



" Ik the beauty of the lilies Christ was honi across the sea, 
With a glory iu His bosom that transfigures you and me, 
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make meu free. 
While God is marching on." -Julia Ward Howe. 

REV. HEKRY WAKD BEECHER is an orator 
and an analyst of human character. In this 
brief sketch I shall refer to some of the prominent 
traits of this remarkable man, as they are developed in 
his writings and speeches. It is a difficult task to com- 
pare him with any other preacher now living, because of 
marked dissimilarities. There are plenty of men of 
more learning in the languages, and yet he does not 
lack 

'' For Hebrew roots, although they're found 
To flourish most on barren ground." 

It is easy to name philosophers more profound than 
he — men so deep they are opaque, and some so smooth 
and polished they sometimes '' slip up " on their own 
sermons and addresses. There are also hosts of humor- 
ous and pathetic preachers, who "dare'' be "as 
funny as they can." They can make their auditors 
cry until tears stand in their eyes, and then they make 
them laugh until the tears roll down their cheeks. These 
achievements are accomplished mainly by the descrip- 
(44) 




KEY. HENRY WARD BEECHEK. 



PLATE IV. 



Henry Ward Beecher. 4^ 

tion of death-bed scenes, spiced with stories, quotations 
of verse, puns, and anecdotes. Henry Ward Beecher 
is not of that type of manhood. He has an abundance 
of capital to draw upon, without borrowing small checks 
with other men's endorsements upon them. He came 
of good stock. Men of great intellectual girth and 
stature are not the mere " accidents of birth." Great 
men grow from a great ancestrj^, found in a near or re- 
mote generation, and they are the natural result of 
causes easily traced by the analytic student of human 
character. IS'o sensible farmer expects to reap a rich 
harvest from seed-corn sown in a barren soil. The 
sterile sand-lot may produce a prickly weed, fit only to 
be plucked with gloved hands and cast into the tire. 
The tall trees of California do not lift their trunks sky- 
ward from a thin, light layer of earth. Their roots 
are anchored in good ground ; and their stems rise in 
symmetry and beauty, waving their green banners in 
the light of the sun, offering an orchestra for the birds 
and a shelter for the beasts of the forest; and when 
they fall, the woods tremble with " sensation." Spring, 
like a fair mourner, writes their epitaph in the sweet 
syllables of wild blossoms, and the feathered choir sing 
their requiem. The offspring of the fallen monarchs 
rise in their places grand and lofty representatives of a 
race of giants. 

Lyman Beecher was one of the uncommon people, a 
blacksmith in his youth, bronzed at the forge and made 
strong by swinging the sledge. Little did he dream 
that the blows on his anvil foresounded the music that 
would echo in theological thunder across the continents 
and around the civilized world. We may say of the 



46 Representative Men. 

times in which Lyman Beecher lived, labored, studied 
and preached — " there were giants in those days." He 
won a good name and a grand renown, and bequeathed 
to his children the I'ich inheritance of that reputation 
which is of more value than silver and gold. His dis- 
tinguished son, Henry Ward, inherited his fathers sound 
physical health and his wonderful force of brain, and 
he is now at this present time, altliough w^ell advanced 
in years, a fair specimen of manly vigor. Few can 
endure continuous work so ^vell as he can, and ac- 
complish so much in a given time. See him at his 
tasks as newspaper-writer, lecturer, author, preacher. 
What a variety of topics he treats upon 1 On the ^nvil 
of hard work, this industrious son of a distinguished 
sire has forged a fame kings might be willing to give 
their crowns to possess. His father had no peer in the 
orthodox pulpit at a time when Channing and 
other Unitarian lights were in the full blaze of their 
meridian glory. I have not space to give an account 
of the battles of the theological athletes of that time. 
I may say, however, that Henry Ward Beecher wears 
his father's shield. 

When the writer was a lad, he attended an anni- 
versary meeting in Chatham Street Chapel. One of 
the most attractive and impassioned speakers was a 
young preacher from Indianapolis. He was square- 
shouldered, and stood erect on straight legs. His 
hair was brown and worn long, his face rosy with 
health and radiant with intelligence, and his large, 
electric eyes, seemed to emit light when he spoke, and 
his voice rang out as sweet and clear as the tones of a 
bell. It was Henry Ward Beecher in the flush of liis 



Henry Ward Beccher. 47 

young manhood. Even at that time he was recognized as 
the " young lion of the West." His eloquence charmed 
some of the prominent men of the Congregational 
Church, and they gave him a call to the pastorate of 
Plymouth Church, in Brooklyn. 

Dear old Dr. Cox, who died in 1880, at the age of 87, 
a very learned, original and brilliant man, and a most 
eloquent orator, said at the time, " I give young Beecher 
six months to wind his clock and stop." Well, one of 
the clocks that had been going did stop in half a year — 
a short time — and Dr. Cox left Brooklyn ; the other 
has been going (not on tick) for thirty years, and it 
strikes v^^itli the ring of undiminished force. 

Among the noted men present at the aforementioned 
meeting, were Joshua Leavitt, the editor; Lewis 
Tappan, the merchant prince ; and Henry C. Bowen, 
now proprietor of the ^' Indejpendentr At this time 
the slavery question was at a white heat ; William 
Lloyd Garrison was writing his caustic essays in Boston ; 
Lyman Beecher was flaming like a comet in the skies 
of theology ; AVhittier was writing his immortal verses ; 
Phillips was thundering and lightening on the plat- 
form, his speech falling like Greek fire upon oppression 
and tyranny; and Greeley was printing his masterful 
editorials. The political world was moved from centre 
to circumference; the fii'mament of reform was ablaze 
with a galaxy of genius and greatness. 

Is it not true that " A great man is born not only 
with his nationality in him," but with strength of will 
and force of brain to execute his mission % Bismarck is 
a plant grown in the soil and air of German institutions ; 
Gladstone is the embodiment of the highest civilization 



48 Representative Men. 

of England ; Grevy sprung from the tropical tempera- 
ment of France ; Garibaldi, the famed Italian patriot, 
who has gone covered with honor and fame, repre- 
sented in his experience the stormy period of his 
day. The fairest and best specimens of humanity ; 
the individuals who do something worthy of commen- 
dation and lasting fame, are not always found in palaces 
with crowns on their heads. They are not all born in 
the purple, nor fed with golden spoons, nor rocked in 
cradles of velvet. They are kingly men and queenly 
women, not dependent upon the banker nor the clothes- 
maker, nor the universities, for their diplomas of dis- 
tinction. Franklin was a printer, the guest of nobles 
and their equal. Washington was a surveyor, and he 
carved a republic out of the dependency of a monarchy. 
The men of our day, in our own land, who have aided 
in shaping politics, in swaying the masses in peace and 
war, in educating and elevating the people, have been 
greatly influenced by our institutions, by the events in 
our history, by the climate, the geography, the vastness 
of our broad, free land — they are the empire men of the 
empire republic. Mr. Beecher is one of the few of 
illustrious men whose fame will not fade. It can not 
be obscured by envious and jealous minds, that would 
make it dim with shadows of criticism. He is a man 
of colossal intellect, with a heart to match his mind. 
He is American gold, minted in the church and 
stamped with the stars and eagle of liberty on one side, 
and the cross on the other. 

When cotton was king in the United States, 
and timid men in the pulpit and time-servers in 
the pews were afraid to utter their protest against 



Henry Ward Beecher. 49 

organized despotism, our heroic champion of free- 
dom opposed, with voice and vote, with argument 
and appeal, with all the power he could wield at 
the press, and with all the sentiment he could create in 
the church, the reign of the white despot. When 
multitudes of mediocre men could not hear the wail of 
the bondmen, because they had cotton in their ears ; 
when they could not see the chain on the bare and 
bleeding heel of the negro, nor the red stripes of blood 
upon his back, because their eyes were blinded with 
cotton ; when they would not utter a word of condem- 
nation against the injustice and cruelty of slavery, be- 
cause their mouths were filled with cotton ; Henry 
Ward Beecher, like the brave Koderic Dhu, blew a 
blast upon his silver clarion, and it was the equivalent 
of ten thousand men. He did not shrink from the 
contest when the cloud of war broke like an exploding 
shell over the land. He was conspicuous when came 
the roar of artillery, the river of blood surging be- 
tween heaps of slain, and he joined with those who 
were jubilant when " a nation " of blacks stood disen- 
thralled upon their broken chains. It seemed as though 
there could be no remission of our national sin without 
the shedding of blood. In the dark days of our civil 
war, negro troops followed the light of the flag, and to 
them its stars were telescopes through which they saw 
God and liberty. In the dreadful duel betwixt the 
North and the South, when brother held brother by 
the throat, and the sympathy of the motherland was 
on the side of the rebellion, the eloquence of Mr. 
Beecher (who addressed the masses in London and else- 
where) did more to turn the tide of opinion in England 
3 



50 Representative Men. 

in favor of justice and liberty, than the diplomacy of 
Seward, the valor of the bravest general in the field, or 
the decisions of judges. 

I have elsewhere hinted of Mr. Beecher's nationality. 
We all are more or less influenced by our environnients. 
The breeziness and freshness of the prairies, the liquid 
harmony of moving billows upon our inland seas, the 
rhythm and sweep of our broad rivers, characterize his 
literary work. There is a breadth, and life, and 
freedom in his extemporaneous speech, and some- 
times a depth and overbrimming fullness in his 
discourses, such as Lake Michigan might suggest. 
Forms and rules may be required by some men to 
keep them within the limits of discretion, to save 
them from going beyond their depth, and of being 
drowned even in shallow water, sliould they leave 
the track — the only straight and narrow road that 
many travel on, is a railroad, and their '^ motive 
for going ahead is a locomotive." Beech er is a dis- 
ciple of nature, and he is at home within any horizon 
that encircles him — with God above, and terra firma 
below. If you put up a fence to keep him out of any 
promising field of labor, he will leap over the bars as a 
hunter would into a meadow of clover. By his power of 
instinct and intuition, he *' discovers new things, 
creates new forms out of old substances." '' He comes 
close to what is innermost in mankind, and not only 
tells us what we thought and could not speak, but what 
we felt and did not know." His efforts are not the result 
of mere mechanism. They are not images carved out 
of wood and made to wear a look of humanity ; but, like 
Topsy, they grow. And that is the reason why his ser- 



Henry Ward Beecher. 51 

mons are as eloquent and interesting as those that were 
delivered long ago by Robert South and Jeremy Tay- 
lor. He has a genius for preaching the Gospel, the 
gift of making religion attractive and lovely. Theo- 
dore Parker said '' a genius for religion is valued far 
above all the rest, 1)ecause the man who has it incar- 
nates in himself the instinct of mankind, brings it to 
their consciousness, puts it into form, and is a leader of 
men in departments deemed by humanity most impor- 
tant of all." It is the emotion implanted in a gifted 
man that inspires him with a wish to communicate his 
thoughts and feelings to others, to teach them piety, 
the ideal love of God, morality, the clean keeping of 
all laws that are just philanthropy (the blossom and the 
fruit on the tree of human charity), the affectionate re- 
gard for the welfare of man. 

Henry Ward Beecher was born at Litchfield, Conn., 
June 24, 1813, graduated at Amherst in 1831, studied 
theology at Lane Seminary, and in 1837 became 
pastor of a church at Lawrenceburg. In 1839 he was 
installed over a small church in Indianapolis, Indiana. 
In 1847 he was called to Plymouth Church, Brook- 
lyn, ]^. Y. It is now the largest Congregational 
church in America. He has been editor of the J^ew 
York Indejpendent and also of the Christian Union. 
He is the author of a number of popular works, the 
names of all of which I can not remember. I will name, 
however, '' Star Papers," " Plymouth Pulpit," "- Lect- 
ures to Young Men," ''Industry and Idleness," "Life 
Thoughts," and "Norwood," a novel, etc. 

Mr. Beecher is nearly seventy years of age, of stout 
build, square-shouldered, and a little below the ordinary 



52 Representative Men. 

height. He is plump of limb, erect in form, and ener- 
getic in his walk. His head is large and covered rather 
thinly now with long, white hair; his forehead well 
developed, eyes bluish-gray and full, lips thick, not at all 
indicative of the poetic refinement of the man, but show- 
ing the animal courage and vigor that can not easily 
be made to surrender. Everybody knows that he is a 
man of unbending purpose and unconquerable will. 
He is often combative — his words are blows, and 
he is a hard hitter. His intense earnestness arises in 
part from his hatred of wrong and oppression — hence 
his pugna(dous combat with slavery. He is highly dra- 
matic, and not confined to his notes in the pulpit. I^o 
man is more felicitous in the use of illustration than 
he. The attribute of humor is employed to good ad- 
vantage when he assails a fashionable vice, and especial- 
ly in his lectures his "laughter doeth good like a 
medicine." He is an enthusiast iu musical matters, and 
fond of poetry, but he seldom quotes, for the very 
suflacient reason that he fails to commit to memory what 
he reads. 

x^ second glance at the '^portrait which accompanies 
this sketch confirms me in the opinion I have given of 
the characteristic traits of this marvelous man. The 
dome-like forehead, the dreamy eyes, the forceful and 
sensitive nostrils, the heavy mouth disciplined and re- 
deemed from coarseness, by the culture of the intellect, 
and the strong chin moulded to meet resistance, com- 
prise a picture of animal, moral, and mental power 
seldom found in a single face. 



* From "Life and Characteristics of Henry Ward Beecher," by Lyman 
Abbott, D.D., Funk & Wagnalls, Publishers, New York. 




REV. DR. JOHN HALL. 



PLATE V. 



Rev. Dr. John Hall, 

PREACHER, LECTURER, AND WRITER. 



" A sweet, attractive kind of grace, 
A full assurance given by looks, 
Continual comfort in a face, 

The lineaments of Gospel books. 
I trow that countenance can not lie, 
Whose thoughts are legible in the eye." 

— Mathew Rotden. 

REV. DR. JOHISr HALL, the popular pastor of the 
Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, 
was born in Ireland, July 31, 1829. His ancestors 
moved from Scotland to the J^orth of Ireland, in one 
of those hegiras which gave notoriety and character to 
the county of Ulster. His father was an elder in the 
Presbyterian Church ; he was a man of substance, of 
social position and influence. When the subject of 
this sketch was thirteen years of age, he was prepared 
to enter Belfast College, where he distinguished him- 
self by winning the prize for high attainments in He- 
brew. After his graduation he began to study for the 
ministry, and was generally the first in his class and 
foremost in gleaning the prizes of the examinations. 
In June, 1849, he was licensed to preach, and imme- 
diately accepted a call from his class to go as their mis- 
sionary among the Catholics in the West of Ireland. 
He was next called to a church at Armagh, where he 

(53) 



54 Representative Men. 

was installed June 30, 1852. Six years later he ac- 
cepted a call to the church of Mary's Abbey, now Rut- 
land Square, in Dublin. There he was recognized as 
one of the ablest and most learned of the preachers in 
that capital of talent and scholarship. From the Queen 
he received the honorary appointment of Commissioner 
of Education for Ireland, and he performed the duties 
of that office until he came to this countr3^ In 1867 
he was a delegate of the Irish General Assembly to the 
United States. He was cordially received wherever he 
went, and his sermons and speeches were noticeable for 
their logic and eloquence. About the time of this visit 
the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church was seeking a pas- 
tor. A unanimous and earnest call was sent to him, 
which he accepted. He was installed J^ovember 3d, 
186Y. His predecessors in that pulpit were Rev. Dr. 
James W. Alexander, Rev. Dr. N. L. Rice — able and 
brilliant men, of national fame, the latter a famous 
man in controversy. But Dr. Hall was equal to the 
task he had chosen. His church edilice is a large and 
superb structure, and is well filled at almost every 
service with what may be called a critical and exacting 
audience. 

Dr. Hall usually preaches from a meagre skeleton of 
notes, and his discourses are sinewy in philosophy and 
virile in argument. His contributions to the re- 
ligious and secular press have added to the number of 
his appreciative and admiring friends. He has been 
in frequent demand as a platform speaker and lyceum 
lecturer, and some time ago he gave a course of theo- 
logical lectures before the students of ]^ew Haven Col- 
lege. Dr. Hall is plain, practical and direct in his ex- 



Rev. Dr. John Hall, 55 

positions, utterly devoid of what is styled the sensa- 
tional manner of presenting his message. He is a pro- 
found classical and theological scholar, well furnished 
for his work, and he evidently is a close and discriminat- 
ing student, who considers his hearers worthy of his 
best efforts every time he preaches. 

To get along well year after year in the presence of 
thoughtful and cultivated people, a religious teacher 
should be endowed with the keen vision and penetra- 
tion that will enable him to read and understand 
human character, and to dissect the deeds and even the 
motives of men. Depth and scope are of more value 
to a minister than brilliancy of fancy and poetic diction. 
A pulpit display of intellectual pyrotechnics, that flash 
and hiss and whii'l and blaze for a moment, and then 
go out, leaving charred and blackened frames and 
wheels and an atmosphere of smoke with the odor 
of sulphur, can gratify only the listener who has no 
capacity for continuous thought and is most moved by 
startling statements and wonderful surprises. 

A prominent man, in the sacred desk or out of it, can 
not be recognized as a star, unless he shines with a 
steady light. An eccentric meteor wandering in space, 
outside of the laws that should govern a heavenly 
messenger, is merely an ignis fatuus, that vanishes 
and leaves no sign. It is apt to lead astray, and can 
not be considered a trustworthy guide. When a great 
and good man, great in his goodness and good in his 
greatness, comes to the front, he adds to the capital of 
brains and hearts ; he bestows on his fellow-men the ad- 
vantages of his learning and culture, his experience 
and eloquence, his talents and his genius. He en- 



56 Representative Men. 

courages education, literature, art, science, and human 
progress in all its noblest and highest phases. He 
helps in weeding arrogance, self-conceit, pretension, 
tyranny and hypocrisy out of the human heart. He 
will have courage enough to stand up in the face of 
fashion and wealth, and tell the truth as he understands 
it. 

The following lines, by the author of this sketch, will 
give the reader an idea of the thoughtful tenderness of 
Dr. Hall and his congregation : 

THE SILENT TOWER. 

" Dr. John Hall's people refrained from hanging a bell in the 
tower of their church, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty- 
fifth Street, and would not even suffer the clock to strike, lest 
the patients in St. Luke's Hospital, opposite, should be dis- 
turbed." — Christian Union. 

It rises in silence and splendor, 

In the light of the smiling day ; 
Its lesson is touching and tender 

To sufferers over the way. 

It points to the bells that are ringing 

In heaven, unheard here below; 
Where the choir celestial is singing, 

Near the Throne that is whiter than snow. 

The music of silence is sweeter 

Than the ringing of bells in towers ; 

It chords with the cadence whose meter 
Is sweet as the wind-harp in flowers. 

By the couches where patients are sleeping. 

And dreaming of visions above. 
Two angels their vigils are keeping: 

One is Mercy, the other is Love. 



Rev. Dr. John Hall, 57 

No longer the clock that's revealing 

The passing away of the hour, 
Can disturb with dolorous pealing, 

Since Love struck it dumb in the tower. 

JS'ature lias endowed Dr. Hall with a strong physical 
frame, as a workshop for his clear and acute mind. He 
is tall, stately, and full-chested, and his face shows the 
seal of culture and earnest thought. Without the bril- 
liancy and originality of some of his cloth, he keeps on 
the even tenor of his way, and is never so ecstatic as 
to lose his head among the clouds. He is a teacher of 
taste and judgment, whose well-balanced mind is con- 
trolled by common-sense and conscience. 



Henry W. Longfellow, 

POET, LINGUIST, AND TEACHER. 



" The wave went down, the wind went down, 
The tide of life turned out to sea : 
Patience of pain and grace of deed, 
The glories of the heart and brain, 
Treasure that shall not come again ; 
The human singing that we need. 
Set to a heavenly ke3^" 

—Elizabeth Stuart Phelfs. 

I'^HE skylark vitalizes its song with sweetest tones 
when, from its low nest in the ground, it ascends 
to heaven,' When it goes upward, higher and higher, 
and still higher on the circling stair of melody, we gaze 
and listen with wonder and rapture, and when at last 
it disappears in the vast empyrean, we know that it yet 
lives, because we still can hear its hymn of praise. 
And should it never return to earth, we could easily 
imagine that it was not dead, but that it had been 
translated to the land where storms would not dis- 
turb its home repose nor arrest its fliglit with dis- 
cordant cloud and thunder, and all memories of it 
would be associated with thoughts of purity and har- 
mony. Longfellow is the skylark of song, and the 
music of his verse is heard in both hemispheres, and 
though he " is lost to sight," he remains " to memory 
dear." We know that he lives in fame's " academy ot 
the immortals," in his graceful, tender, sympathetic, and 
melodious verse, in the happy recollection of a life de- 
(58) 



/> 




if 




HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, 



PLATE VI. 



Heniy W. Longfellozv. 39 

voted to the best interests of humankind, and in the 
spirit-world with the great and good, whose preparatory 
stadies, experience, example, and labors here, have been 
the stars in the mantles they have dropped for other 
shoulders to wear. 

Before Longfellow w^as nineteen years of age he 
had graduated with honor, and had written for the 
United States Literary Gazette that famous and beauti- 
ful poem, '' An April Day." 

Sweet April, many a thought is wedded unto thee as hearts are 

wed, 
Nor shall they fail till, to its autumn brought, Life's golden fruit 

is shed. 

At a recent meeting of a number of distinguished 
men in the city of Boston, Oliver Wendell Hohnes, 
poet, lecturer, doctor and critic, and life-long friend 
of Mr. Longfellow, in the course of an eloquent and 
discriminating speech, said : 

Until the silence fell upon us, we did not entirely appreciate 
how largely his voice was repeated in the echoes of our own 
hearts. The affluence of his production so accustomed us to 
look for a poem from him at short intervals that we could 
hardly feel how precious that was which was so abundant. 
Not, of course, that every single poem reached the standard 
of the highest among them all. That could not be in 
Homer's time, and mortals must occasionally nod now as then. 
But the hand of the artist shows itself unmistakably in every- 
thing which left his desk — the O of Giotto could not helj) being a 
perfect round, and the verse of Longfellow is always perfect in 
construction. 

He worked in that simple and natural way which character- 
izes the master. But it is one thing to be simple through pov- 
erty of intellect, and another thing to be simple by repression of all 



6o Representative Men. 

redundancy and over-statement ; one thing to be natural througli 
ignorance of all rules, and another to have made a second nature 
out of the sovereign rules of art. In respect to this simplicity 
and naturalness, his style is in strong contrast with that of many 
writers of our time. There is no straining for effect, there is no 
torturing of rhythm for novel patterns, no wearisome iteration of 
petted words, no intelligent clipping of syllables to meet the ex- 
igencies of a verse, no affected archaisms, rarely any liberty taken 
with language, unless it may be in the form of a few words in the 
translation of Dante. I will not except from these remarks the 
singular and original form which he gave to his poem "Hiawa- 
tha," a poem with a curious history in many respects. Suddenly 
and immensely popular in this country, greatly admired by 
many foreign critics, imitated with perfect ease by any clever 
school-boy, serving as a model for metrical advertisements, made 
fun of, sneered at, admired, abused, but at any rate a picture full 
of pleasing fancies and melodious cadences. The very names are 
jewels which the most fastidious muse might be proud to wear. 

It has been said that Longfellow was pre-eminently 
the poet of motion. In his verse everything moves. 
His numbers flow in liquid harmony, like brooklets 
through meadows of flowers, like streams rolling down 
the mountain, like rivers pulsing to the sea, like waves 
sweeping from the wind-swept ocean. They reveal 
the march of armies, the movements of the heavenly 
bodies, the progress of life, the toil of laborers. 

Art is long, and time is fleeting, 

And our hearts, though stout and brave, 

Still like muffled drums are beating 
Funeral marches to the grave. 

How sweetly he sings of shops and streets and quaint 
old towns, alive and active with toil and traffic ; of 
clouds that sail like fl.eets through the air ; of birds that 
soar in the unchartered atmosphere ! 



Henry IV. Longfellozv. 6 1 

Walked of yore the master singers cbanting rude poetic strains, 
From remote and sunless suburbscamethey to the friendly guild, 
Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows 

build. 
As the weaver plied his shuttle, wove he to the mystic rhyme, 
And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime. 
Here, when art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart, 
Lived and labored Albrecht Durer, the evangelist of art, 
Hence, in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand, 
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the better land. 

Here is motion. Singers are chanting, workmen are 
weaving, hammering, toiHng. Longfellow was au art- 
ist who conld cut a cameo or carve a statue. Margaret 
Fuller compared liim to a shell, in which every line and 
tint tells the story of the winds and waves ; and I may, 
add, that the music of his song is a reminder of the 
melody of the unresting sea. His " Occultation of 
Orion " is a line symphony. His " Nuremberg " and 
" Belfry of Bruges," if less brilliant, are better than By- 
ron's description of old cities. Here is an extract from 
one of his sweetest poems : 

Here runs the highway to the town, 

There the green lane descend?, 
Through which I walked to church with thee, 
O gentlest of my friends. 

The shadow of the linden trees 

Lay moving on the grass. 
Between them and the moving boughs 

A shadow thou didst pass. 

Thy dress was like the lilies. 

And thy heart as pure as they. 
One of God's holy angels. 

Did walk with me that dny. 



62 Representative Men. 

I saw the branches of the trees 
Bend down thy touch to meet, 

The clover blossoms in the grass 
Rise up to kiss thy feet. 

How tender and beautiful the sentiment in the fol- 
lowing sonnet, which was written when Sumner died : 

River that stealest with such silent pace 
Around the City of the Dead, where lies 
A. friend who bore thy name, and whom these eyes 
Shall sec no more in his accustomed place, 

Linger and fold him in thy soft embrace, 

And say good-night, for now the western skies 
Are red with sunset, and gray mists arise 
Like damps that gather on a dead man's face. 

Good-night ! Good-night ! as we so oft have said 
Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days 
That are no. more, and shall no more return. 
Thou hast but taken thy light and gone to bed ; 
I stay a little longer, as one stays 
To cover up the embers that still burn. 

The poet was affectionately fond of little children. 
What a touching tribute to his love for them was their 
" Longfellow Day " in the public schools. What gift 
could be more appropriate and. significant than the chair 
made from the chestnut-tree, under which the "Vil- 
lage Blacksmith " made his anvil ring. It was a present 
from the children. This happy sonnet was suggested 
and inspired by his love of child-life : 

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er. 
Leads by the hand her little child to bed. 
Half willing, half reluctant to be led 
And leave his broken playthings on the floor, 
Still gazing at them through the open door, 



Henry W. Longfellow. 63 

Nor wholly reassured and comforted 
By promises of others in their stead, 
"Which, though more splendid, may not please him more j 
So nature deals with us and takes away 

Our playthings one by one, and by the hand 

Leads us to rest so gently that we go 

Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay. 

Being too full of sleep to understand 

How far the unknown transcends the what we know. 

The poetry of Longfellow is popular because he is 
the poet of the people. In his poems there is the " touch 
of nature that makes the whole world kin." It is good 
reading, not only for the " common folks," but for ed- 
ucated artists of the purest and most esthetic taste. 
He has bequeathed a heritage of thought and feeling 
of which the entire race of readers may become bene- 
ficiaries. 

''Evangeline," probably because of its associations, 
was a favorite production of the author's. This para- 
graph, from a letter written by Gen. James Grant Wil- 
son, is interesting. It is from the N. Y. Indejpendent : 

In one of his earliest letters, referring to "Evangeline," which 
Longfellow on more than one occasion assured me was always a 
favorite with the author, the poet writes: 

" The story was told me (that is, the bare outline of it) by a 
friend of Hawthorne, who had been urging him to write a tale 
on the subject. 1 said to Hawthorne: 'I wish you would give it 
to me for a poem ! ' He did so immediately, not seeming to care 
about it nor desiring to write on the theme." 

Writing in 1872, the poet says: 

"Your letter and the valuable present of Mr. S. C. Hall have 
reached me safely. Please accept my best thanks for the great 
kindness you have shown in taking charge of and bringing from 
the Old World a gift so precious as the inkstand of the poet who 



64 Representative Men. 

wrote the ' Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.' Will you be so good 
as to send me the present address of Mr. Hall ? I wish, without 
delay, to acknowledge this mark of bis remembrance and regard, 
and am not sure where a letter will find him." 

Referring to this precious souvenir, the venerable Richard 
Henry Dana wrote to me soon after : 

"It greatly pleased me to receive a few lines from you, just re- 
turned from that glorious old city, London, which, it is sad to 

think, I shall never see And so you brought over Mr. 

Coleridge's inkstand for Mr. Longfellow. I am almost tempted 
to commit burglary or even murder, if necessary, to i)ossess it. 
Mr. Longfellow must look out for himself." 

This inkstand, I may mention, had been used for many years 
by Coleridge, and also for nine years by Longfellow, on the cen- 
tre of whose library table he pointed it out to my daughter, while 
showing her his most highly prized treasures. Said Mr. Long- 
fellow : 

" This memento of the poet recalls to my recollection that 
Theophilus Parsons, subsequently eminent in Massachusetts ju- 
risprudence, paid me for a dozen of my early pieces that appeared 
in his United States Literary Gazette, with a copy of Coleridge's 
poems, which I have still in my possession. Mr. Bryant contrib- 
uted the ' Forest Hymn,' ' The Old Man's Funeral,' and many 
other poems to the same periodical, and thought he was well 
paid by receiving two dollars apiece, a price, by the way, which 
he himself placed upon the poems and, at least, double the amount 
of my honorarium. Truly, times have changed with us littera- 
teurs during the last half century." 

The year following (1873) Mr. Longfellow writes: 

"It was only a day or two ago that, happening to be in the 
College library, I found the volume you were kind enough to 
send me. As. Mr. Sibley does not undertake to distribute the 
parcels sent to his care, they being very numerous, one sometimes 
may wait for weeks before getting his own. This is my apology 
for not thanking you sooner for your most entertaining book ; 
but it has come safe at last,, and I have read it with great inter- 
est I remember very well the poem of ' Sukey,' an imita- 



Henry W. Lo?tgfellow. 65 

tioa of Halleck's 'Fanny.' It was written by William Bicker 
Walter, a contemporary of mine at Bowdoin College, who died 
young. You will find an account of it and its author in the sec- 
ond volume of Duyckinck's ' American Cyclopedia.' " 

Mr. Longfellow was honored by many who w^ere un- 
acquainted with hira personally, and who knew nothing 
of his poetry. The poor loved him because of his quiet 
and discriminating charity ; and the men of business re- 
spected and complimented him because he was methodi- 
cal, practical, and prompt as a man of affairs ; and it 
may be added here that he manifested a deep interest 
in public matters, not eschewing the political questions 
of the day. He was hostile to slavery ; and wdien the 
Abolitionists fought their peaceful battles, his sympa- 
thies were with them ; and during the war he encour- 
aged the boys in blue in their brave endeavors to save 
the life of the nation and preserve the Union. He sel- 
dom, perhaps never, w\as demonstrative in public, and 
rarely attended political gatherings ; but he was em- 
phatically a Republican, and contributed to the funds 
of his party, for his good common sense recognized the 
necessity of organization to secure success in politics, 
and he was accustomed to say, " I vote with my party." 

The people of Cambridge give him credit for loyalty 
to the classical old town of his residence, whose society 
he preferred to the more pretentious and fashionable 
society of the neighboring cities. He did not believe 
that "a man born in Boston need not be born aofain," 
nor that its Common was the original Garden of Eden. 

The Eev. Dr. T. T. Hunger remarks: 

In the opening lines of "In Memoriam" Tennyson says: 
I held it true, with him who sings 
To one cletir harp in divers tones, 



66 Representative Men. 

That men may rife on stepping-stones 
Of tlieir dead selves to higher things. 

The poet to whom he refers is commonly suj^posed to be Long- 
fellow, and if so, it is probably " The Ladder of St. Augustine " 
that Tennyson had in mind. But the reference in the second 
verse is wider than to any single poem, and so it may be taken 
from the "Psalm of Life" and "Excelsior." The first of these 
jDoems is an appeal for earnestness and activity in life on the 
score of its brevity, and for achievement on the ground that 
though "time is fleeting," " art is long"; hence, life will not be 
in vain and is to be lived bravely and helpfully. The other 
poem, -'Excelsior," which, I happen to know, one of the re- 
maining great poets of our country, recently, in private conver- 
sation, pronounced to be Longfellow's best poem, is in a sterner 
strain and fully meets the thought in Tennyson's stanza. 

■ My first impression of his sweetness I gathered some years ago, 
when I accidentally overheard him in conversation with Mr. 
James Russell Lowell, as I walked behind them on Brattle IStreet. 
A sweet little girl came running by them, and I heard Mr. Long- 
fellow say to Mr. Lowell, "I like little girls the best," and he 
continued : 

" What are little girls made of? 
Sugar and spice 
And all things nice, 
That's what little girls are made of." 

We can see how by a sort of instinct all the little girls in the 
land are repeating the verses of the poet who loved them so well. 

I have quoted freely from writers wlio were the 
nearest to him, and who were the most intimately ac- 
quainted with the poet and his works. They refer not 
only to his learning and genius, but to his manly inde- 
pendence, his refined, gentle, and quiet demeanor, and 
to his tender and sympathetic heart. Ilis temper was 
serene and cheerful, though slightly saddened by his 



Henry W. Longfellow. 6j 

great sorrow, which shadowed him like the wing of a 
guardian angeL 

With perhaps the exception of Poe, his contempora- 
ries were never jealous of him — indeed, they were gen- 
erally proud of him and gave him honor as a literary 
artist of exquisite taste and culture. His fame is the 
heritage of all Americans. At last, full of years and 
honors, he has left us. 

Say not the poet dies ! 

Though in the dust he lies, 
He can not forfeit his melodious breath, 

Unsphered by envious Death ! 
Life drops the voiceless myriads from its roll: 

Their fate he can not share, 

Who, in the enchanted air. 
Sweet with the lingering strains that Echo stole, 
Has left his dearer self, the music of his soul ! 

Poets may live a century of years, but they never grow 
old. It is universally conceded, that they stand among 
the highest and foremost men, and at the head of the 
human race. Their thrones are taller than the thrones 
of kings ; their crowns shine when the crowns of em- 
perors are lost in the dust ; their sceptres sway the 
world when the sceptres of monarchs fall from their 
palsied hands ; their memory is a sweet-smelling and 
immortal flower. Cardinal Richelieu sat capped in the 
presence of the trembling queen, but he uncovered his 
head in the presence of the poets. 

If any men are inspired, the poets are inspired ; if 
one type of humanity approaches nearer to divinity 
than another, the poets are of that type. Their 
speech is the purest, their ideas are the grandest, their 



68 Representative Men. 

sentiments the most divine. The prophets (Heaven's 
interpreters) were poets. Panl, the most eloquent man 
of his age, was a poet, and, with reverence and sincerity, 
I will add, Jesus of E'azareth was a poet. Children, be- 
fore their minds haye been cast in the mould of world- 
liness, are poets, and of such children is the Kingdom 
of Heaven. There are three phases of poetry : the 
spontaneous, the artistic, and that which combines the 
one with the other. Tennyson has the two quantities, 
and he has written more faultless verse than any other 
man of the present age. Longfellow stands near to 
him — not much in the shadow ; the shade bringing 
out the light to the advantage of the American poet. 

Perhaps there are no perfect poets. Poetry is so 
subtle, so ethereal, so spiritual, so divine, that its exist- 
ence is not confined to the horizon of human observa- 
tion and experience ; it soars into the empyrean, and 
like the song of the lark, is heard wdien the singer is out 
of sight, offering his hymn at the gate of heaven. It 
is the expression of emotion, imagination, passion, and 
is thought coined into speech spoken or written. It is 
the flowering of genius into verse and prose, into elo- 
quence and action. Feeling is its soul and essence ; re- 
flection gives it embodiment in utterance, suggesting 
language with an affinity for the sentiment, and develop- 
ing phrases, the instruments of its expression. Hazlitt 
says, " Poetry is the stuff of which our life is made ; the 
rest is mere oblivion, a dead-letter ; for all that is worth 
remembering in life is the poetry of it." The poetry 
that enters into our every-day life is what we want ; 
it is the bread, the staff of intellectual life, and we find 
it abounding in Longfellow's writings. He reaches, 



Henry W. Longfellow, 69 

touches, and thrills the hearts of the masses of readers. 
Alas ! he has gone, he has ascended, not in a chariot of 
fire, but on the white wings of the angels, to the Sum- 
mer-land of the happy immortals. He has left us the 
rich inheritance of a clean life, a pure example, and 
untiring industry. 

There is uotliing abnormal and feverish in the produc- 
tions of Longfellow's pen. We read and find rest — not the 
rest of drowsiness, but the repose of peace and quietude. 
He is plain, simple, suggestive, and far removed from 
the spasmodic, nervous, and startling manner of 
mediocre men, who seek to astonish the multitude by 
" feats of ground and lofty tumbling." He has kindled 
the spark of hope in many bosoms, by writing in strains 
like this : 

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors 

Amid these earthly damps : 
What seem to us but sad funereal tapers 

May be Heaven's distant lamps. 

There is no death ! What seems so is transition: 

This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian 

Whose portal we call death. 

He has done more for the oppressed aborigines than 
history, or biography, or human sympathy arising from 
moral and philanthropic sentiment has done for them, 
so far as I can judge. What a plea for the red man is 
" Hiawatha." Read these lines — in them the poet un- 
consciously describes himself: 

He the sweetest of all singers, 
Beautiful and childlike was he, 
Brave as man is, soft as woman. 



70 Representative Men, 

Pliant as a wand of willow, 
Stately as a deer with antlers- 
All the many sounds of Nature 
Borrowed sweetness from liis sii;ging, 
All the hearts of men were softened 
By the pathos of his music; 
For he sang of peace and freedom, 
Sung of beauty, love, and longing, 
Sung of death and life undying 
In the land of the hereafter. 
For his gentleness they loved him 
i^nd the magic of his singing. 

As a Christian poet, he everywhere commits himself 
to the cause of freedom, of justice, of humanity, of 
religion. How hearty and hopeful he was. Kead his 
own words : 

We walk here, as it were, in the crypts of life; at times from 
the great cathedral above us we can hear the organ and the 
chanting choir, we see the light stream through the open door, 
when some friend goes out before us — and shall we fear to mount 
the narrow staircase of the grave that leads us out of this uncer- 
tain twilight into enternal life? 

*The above is equal to the same number of lines in 
Bryant's Thanatopsis. It is well known that Mr. Long- 
fellow is the author of several books of elegant prose. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born Febru- 
ary lYth, 180Y, at Portland, Maine, and at the time 
of his death, which occurred on the 24th of March, 
1882, he had just passed the seventy-fifth anniversary 
of his birth. He entered Bowdoin College in 1821, and, 
four years later, took his degree. Among his class 
mates were Hawthorne and Geo. B. Cheever. After his 
graduation he began the study of law with his father, 



Henry W. Loiigfellozv. yi 

but shortly afterwards accepted an invitation to take 
the professorship of Modern Languages in Bowdoin 
College. After spending three years abroad in prepa- 
ration for his task, he returned and held the position 
iive years, when he resigned to take a similar charge in 
Harvard University, holding the latter professorship 
seventeen years. He was twice married, his second 
wife " being the beautiful Mary Ashburner, of 
Hyperion," to whom he was married in 184:3, and who, 
after nearly a quarter of a century of happy wedded 
life, was burned to death at her home in Cambridge. 
His live children survive him. Onslow, the oldest, 
is married and engaged in business in Boston. Ern- 
est is an artist (not a few of the sons of poets be- 
come artists of rare skill), and is winning green wreaths 
and golden opinions. The three daughters whose por- 
traits were painted in what I may call a trio picture by 
Buchanan Read, the poet-painter, and who are referred 
to by their father in these w^ords, 

" Grave Alice and laughing Allegra 
And Edith with golden hair,'' 

are living in the vicinity of the old home. Alice is a 
writer ; Anna is also a lady of cultivated taste and fond 
of letters ; Edith is the wife of Richard H. Dana, a 
descendant of distinguished ancestors of that name. 

The poet's two brothers are clergymen ; Samuel is a 
poet and preacher ; Alexander confines his labors 
chiefly to the church in his care. 

Perhaps one of the best portraits of the distinguished 
subject of this sketch appeared, soon after his death, in 
the Phrenological Journal. It shows strength and 



J2 Repi'escntative Men. 

sweetness of character, and reserved resources for the 
time of need. The height and breadth of the forehead, 
the handsome head covered with soft, silvery hair, the 
hirge soft blue eyes, the healthily- orbed face well set in 
a snow-white beard, and the nose, fit for the leader of 
men, make an impressive picture of one of the noblest, 
purest and ablest of writers of this generation — the 
poet, prince and scholar, who has left a space in 
American literature no man living can fill. 

Eulogy of Longfellow can not be exhausted, and the 
humblest of his admirers, without an affront to mod- 
esty, may be permitted to add a small leaf to the poet's 
laurel crown. The following lines were written by the 
author of this sketch in honor of the seventy-fifth 
birthday of Longfellow, and their receipt was ac- 
knowledged in these wordSj " Compliments and thanks 
for your kind and sympathetic poem." 

Sweet memories cluster round thy name, 
The synonym of lasting fame. 

And three-score years, with ten and five, 
Make thee not old, but more alive. 

The music of thy rhythmic words 
Will live as long as songs of birds. 

Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard bays, 
Are woven in thy wreath of praise. 

May peace descend, a dove divine, 
To shelter that sweet home of thine. 

He is the poet of the household and the fireside, a 
troubadour of the hearthstone and the heart, the do- 



Henry W. Longfellow. 73 

mestic singer whose songs chord with the iruisic of 
the soul. Pan stilled the heart of the nations with his 
shout — Longfellow made all hearts beat joyfully with 
his song. The last published effort of this amiable and 
noble singer must not be omitted from these outlines. 
They have been widely copied, and will long be cher- 
ished by the brave survivors who risked their lives in 
battle to save the nation's life, and by the descendants 
of those who died as well as of those who survived, and 
by all loyal men and women, and by heroes iu all 
lands, as a beautiful tribute to valor and patriotism. 

DECORATION DAY. 

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest 

On this Field of the Grounded Arms, 

Where foes no more molest. 
Nor sentry's shot alarms ! • 

Ye have slept on the ground before, 

And started to your feet. 
At the cannon's sudden roar, 

Or the drum's redoubling beat. 

But in this camp of death 

No sound your slumber breaks ; 
Here is no fevered breath, 

No wound that bleeds and aclies. 

All is repose and peace, 

Untrampled lies the sod ; 
The shouts of battle cease — 

It is the Truce of God I 

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep ! 
The thoughts of men shall be 

4 



74 Representative Men, 

As sentinels to keep 
l^our rest froni danger free. 

Your silent tents of green 

We deck with fragrant flowers : 

Yours has the suffering been, 
The memory shall be ours. 

Our great favorite will be held in loving remem- 
brance for his parity of soul, his felicity of expression, 
his delicate musical taste, and his artistic skill. He did 
not shoot skyward like a rocket, but soared naturally, 
serenely, on vibrant wings, that beat the air with 
rhythmic melody. His verse was so simple in structure 
that children loved it, and strong men admired it and not 
only committed it to memory, but learned it ty hearty 
for it moved the emotional as well as the intellectual 
nature of man. Without eccentricity or sensational 
endeavor, he won his way to a lofty place in letters, and 
his literary labor was in perfect accord with his benev- 
olent and beautiful life. 




THFRLOW WEKD. 



PLATE VII. 



ThURLOW ^VEED, 

THE NESTOR OF THE NEW YORK PRESS. 



" There is an inwrought life in every hour, 
Fit to be chronicled at large and told 
'Tis thine to pluck to light its secret power, 
And on the air its man^'-colored heart unfold." 

—Cornelius Matthews. 

THURLOW WEED, the American Warwick— if a 
man may be called a king-maker where every 
man is born a king, and where red blood is as royal as 
that which is bine — has exerted more political influ- 
ence than any other man of his time on this continent. 
Politically speaking, he has discrowned and decapitated 
more men than any Roman emperor ever did, and he 
has enthroned many in comfortable places of profit and 
honor. 

He is at the " present writing " in his eighty-fourth 
year, but his brain has not lost its force, nor his hand 
its cunning. His frequent appearance on the platform 
at public meetings — his familiar initials, T. W., in the 
columns of the newspapers — his tall form towering 
above most other men in the street — his plain and yet 
attractive and intellectual face on 'change, at the bank, 
and elsewhere — make him one of the best known of 
men in this vast hive of human industry and enter- 
prise, the city of New York. 

How he is pursued by the inquisitive interviewers, 

(75^ 



76 Representative Men. 

M'ho consider his opinion authority on many of the 
great questions of the day ! How brilliant and pathetic 
his sketches of associates and acquaintances who have 
dropped in the harness in the work-day and foot-worn 
path of human accomplishment ! How liberal his do- 
nations to various institutions and to the poor and 
needy ! 

In the meridian splendor of his power as a politician 
— shall I not say statesman ? — he manipulated wires 
that touched town, county, State, and national affairs. 
He was, with rare exceptions, the match of the strong- 
est and most skillful men that ventured to measure 
swords — or rather pens, mightier than swords — with 
him in the arena of discussion. His advice, which was 
usually wise and discreet, was sought by the savants of 
the State. His support was considered the equivalent 
of success, and his opposition the shadow that goes be- 
fore defeat. His marvelous influence was due not 
alone to his almost prophetic vision and foresight, but 
in part to his apparent unselfishness and his generous 
magnanimity. His happy combination of tact and 
talent enabled him to demolish in a paragraph a long 
editorial leader from the pen of the gifted Croswell — 
his accomplished democratic opponent. The grape- 
shot of the Journal killed more men than the forty- 
pounders of the Argus. A broadside from CroswelPs 
mortar was terrible — a discharge from Weed's mitrail- 
leuse swept squares of voters from the front. When 
the Argus made the most noise — in other words, the 
most thunder — the Journal flashed out the most vivid 
and destructive lightning. Croswell wrote essays — 
and fine ones they were. Weed wrote leaders and par- 



TJmrlozv Weed. '/y 

agraphs that throbbed in type. In the language of 
another, his sentences seemed so full of vitality, that if 
you had lanced them they would have bled. These 
two distinguished editors fought many paper battles, 
but they remained personal friends, and were never so 
silly as to cut each other in the street because they 
thrashed and slashed each other in the newspapers. 
The only sticks they used in their warfare were sticks 
of type. ISTot so with Horace Greeley. He had a 
grievance ; he considered himself badly treated by 
Mr. Weed and by Mr. Seward, his political twin and 
partner; and the wound was deep, sore, and incurable. 
Friends endeavored in vain to bring about a reconcilia- 
tion. Even the sun has spots, and Mr. Weed's neglect 
of Horace Greeley seems to have been indefensible. 
When the great editor and founder of the Tribune 
needed assistance, and Mr. Weed could have given it 
without cost to himself, he did not help his gifted co- 
laborer and brother of the pen ! There may be an- 
other side to this question, but the writer has never 
heard of it. There were undoubtedly other causes of 
estrangement arising out of differences of opinion in 
relation to pubHc measures and public men. Greeley 
was eloquently in earnest, outspoken, and too lofty of 
purpose to stoop to the tricks of policy and party ma- 
neuvering. Weed was a shrewd, trained, and skillful 
manipulator of men and of parties. 

The distinguished subject of this sketch was born in 
Cairo, Greene Co., N. Y., E"ovember 15, 1797. The 
loss of parents when he was young threw him at an 
early age on his own resources, and he entered as a 
cabin-boy in a sloop. He afterward became an ap- 



78 Representative Men. 

prentice in a printing office at Catskill, from which 
place he went to Herkimer to set type in the service 
of Colonel Stone — siibsequentlj the famous editor of 
the New York Commercial Advertiser. On the break- 
ing out of the War of 1812, young Weed enlisted as a 
drummer in the United States Army, but was soon 
promoted to the position of quartermaster-sergeant. 
He served at Sackett's Harbor and elsewhere on the 
frontier. On leaving the army he returned after a 
short stay in New York to the village of Herkimer, 
where he was married. His next move was to start a 
paper in Onondaga Co. Not succeeding in his enter- 
prise, he tried his fortune with a paper at Norwich, Che- 
nango Co. In that paper he not only displayed his 
knowledge of farming, but he also advocated the canal 
pohcy of Governor De Witt Clinton. His paper was 
not a pecuniary success, and he went to work at the case 
in Albany. Here Mr. Weed became deeply interested 
in politics — especially in the struggle which terminated in 
the election of John Quincy Adams ; his reputation as a 
wise counselor reached Rochester, where he was called 
to edit a daily paper. During the excitement caused 
by the abduction of Morgan in 1827, he took charge of 
the Anti-Masonic Inquirer, and was twice elected to 
the State Legislature by the Anti-Masons. On the es- 
tablishment of the Albany Evening Journal in 1830 
Mr. Weed returned to Albany and became its editor, 
and conducted its columns in the interest of the anti- 
Jackson party. From 1830 to 1862 he was a powerful 
political leader at the capital of New York State, 
and was at the head of first the Whig, and then of the 
Republican party. 



Thurlow Weed. yg 

He advocated with great force and brilliancy the 
claims of Harrison, Taylor, Scott, Fremont, Lincoln, 
and Seward to Presidential distinction. As an inde- 
pendent adviser at nominating conventions he seems to 
have been endowed with an irresistible influence. In 
JSTovember, 1861, he went to Europe in a semi-official 
capacity, and returned in June, 1862. In 1865 he be- 
came a resident of New York City, where for a time 
he edited the Commercial Advertiser. He is the 
author of " Letters from Europe and the West Indies," 
and he has been for a considerable time preparing his 
autobiography and correspondence for publication. He 
is honored and beloved, not only as the Kestor of the 
JSTew York Press, but as a wise, sincere, and trustworthy 
patriot, and his quiet philanthropy has won the affection 
of all who know him best. 

What shrewd moves this remarkable man has made 
on the chess-board of political experience! A word 
whispered at Albany was at once heard and heeded at 
Washington. Men who considered themselves safe in 
office and fenced about with good works for theu- party, 
and who dreamed of advancement at night, were aston- 
ished to find their heads in the basket in the morning. If 
a letter by mail, or a message by telegraph, failed to short- 
en the stature of an offending office-holder, a personal ef- 
fort was sure to bring him down. He had the strength 
of a giant, and he did not hesitate to use it for what he 
considered the benefit of his party. He had the skill 
to weave variant interests into a cable strong enough 
to hold his ship in the harbor where she dropped her 
anchors. His magnetic influence over men, and his 
command of resources enabled him to marshal them 



8o Representative Men, 

to the front to figlit, if need be, for his measures. 
Long-headed and far-seeing, he often made combina- 
tions of city and country plans to enable him to carry 
into effect his own methods to secure success. Some- 
times he was like Barmecide iu the '' Arabian I^ights," 
who promised an exquisite entertainment and called 
for tempting viands that were never given to the guests 
— not that he intended to disappoint, much less to de- 
ceive his political friends. 

Mr. Weed will be long remembered for his mar- 
velous skill and tact as a party manager. Not accept- 
ing office himself — save in three or four instances, 
in two of which he consented to take a seat in the 
Legislature of his native State — he did more than anv 
other man in '^Aie United States in advancing the polit- 
ical interests of many of his party friends. His services 
in securing the election of De Witt Clinton as 
Governor — his gallant light against the Albany regency 
— his aggressive warfare with the Democratic party — 
his brave and prosperous leadership of the Republican 
party — his success in bringing about the Presidential 
nominations of Harrison, Taylor, and Scott — his ad- 
vocacy of the election of Fremont and Lincoln, and his 
services in a serai-diplomatic capacity for the latter in 
England, and elsewhere on the other side of the At- 
lantic, have made him a man of mark in our history. 

Over and over again he was urged to take high and 
honorable positions under the State and under the 
IS^ational Government. He could have been easily 
elected to a chair in the lower or upper House of the 
United States Congress. Many times he has been in- 
vited to accept a foreign mission, and he had the " pick 



Thurlow Weed, 8i 

of the Courts " — but he had rather be Thurlow "Weed 
(Warwick) than Governor of the State, United States 
Senator, or Minister at the Court of St. James. 

Perhaps I ought to add that this shrewd and enter- 
prising politician, who made Horace Greeley editor of 
the Log Cabin (which was the portico of the White 
House), was the inventor of the Albany lobby — not 
necessarily a bad machine, save when in the hands of 
untrustworthy men. He also discovered a number of 
men who were hidden in obscurity and he brought 
them to light, and some of them reflected great honor 
upon themselves and their country. The writer is im- 
pressed with the idea that Mr. Weed was generally 
governed by patriotic and disinterested motives — that 
he loved his party much, but loved his country most of 
all, and sought the influence and power of his party to 
promote the best interests of his country. He now ac- 
cepts the task of peacemaker, and his labor of love is 
often crowned with success. 

He looks like a chief — a real leader of men. Up- 
ward of six feet in height and well formed, he stands 
like Saul among the Hebrews — a head and shoulders 
above the multitude. His large head is well covered 
with white hair, which grows low on the forehead ; his 
grayish-blue eyes have a direct, steady, and benevolent 
gaze ; his nose is large enough to have suited one of 
Napoleon's marshals ; his lips are too closely compressed 
to unsay any word that he has spoken. His face shows 
the reason why during our late war he adopted the motto 
of Algernon Sidney, " Biib lihertate qytietam " — " No 
peace without liberty." 
4* 



VV^ILLIAM M. EVARTS, 



EX-SECRETARY OF STATE. 



"Since amidst a whole bench of which some are so bright, 
Not one of them shines more learned and polite." 

—Buckingham. 

WILLIAM M. EYAKTS, one of the foremost law- 
yers in this country, is also a great statesman and 
a brilhant orator. He is the son of a distinguished 
clergyman, was born in Boston, Feb. 6, 1818. Studied 
and graduated at Yale College, read law in the Harvard 
law school, and was admitted to the bar in 'New York 
in 1841. Union College gave him the degree of LL.D. 
in 1857, Yale copied the example in 1865, and Harvard 
followed suit in 18Y0. In the meantime he was busy 
in his office, in the courts, on the platform, and promi- 
nent at public receptions and entertainments ; at the lat- 
ter he won great applause for his witty and eloquent 
after-dinner speeches. 

In the impeachment trial of President Johnson in 
the spring of 1868, he was leading counsel for the de- 
fendant. From July 15, 1868, to the close of John- 
son's Administration, he was Attorney-General of the 
United States. In 1872 he was counsel for the United 
States in the tribunal of arbitration on the Alabama 
claims at Geneva, and he was Secretary of State during 

(82) 




HON. WM. M. EVARTS 



PLATE VIII. 



William M, Evarts. 83 

the Administration of President Hayes. Several of 
his addresses have been published. '' Centennial Ora- 
tion before the Lincoln Society of Yale College," 
" Address before the E"ew England Society," and his 
speeches on various topics, have appeared in the news- 
papers. 

As chief counsel in the Beecher-Tilton trial, he added 
fresh laurels to his wreath of fame, Mr. Evarts is fond 
of sentences long drawn out, and keeps his periods as 
far apart as possible; indeed his continuity of speech 
demands the most critical attention to prevent entangle- 
ment of thought in the thread of his discourse, but the 
frequent gleams of wit and humor throw light upon his 
theme and aid the careful hearer in his efforts to get at 
the philosophy of his plea. His much learning has not 
" made him mad," but his varied reading has made him, 
in the language of Lord Bacon, " a full man," and he 
can respond at a moment's notice to the ^^ tap " of the 
presiding officer's gavel, and overflow with eloquence. 
He astonishes the stranger because his words of Are 
come from a face of ice, and his fat and unctuous 
thought in a thin tenor voice. No matter what topic 
comes up for discussion, he is equallj^ at home, with 
questions of political economy, the policy of the admin- 
istration, the abstract principles of government, the de- 
tails of personal biography, the philosophy of ancient 
and modern history, or the intricate science of law. 
With such a variety of solid information on all sorts of 
subjects, and with just enough poetry in his make-up to 
give warmth and coloring to what he says ; he is an ef- 
fective debater, marshaling his figures, facts and proofs 
in formidable array on the rostrum or at the bar. 



84 Representative Men, 

He lias not the epileptic manner of a Choate, nor the 
solid and profound argument of a Webster, nor the 
lofty eloquence of the imagination which characterized 
the best efforts of Burke. But he is pre-eminently 
practical, philosophical, shrewd, far-seeing, with an 
overmastering command of legal lore; in a word, he 
stands at the head of the American bar, and there is no 
man on the Supreme Bench or in any of the courts 
who can cast a shadow upon him. The few equals he 
has in the United States or elsewhere can be counted 
on the reader's lino^ers. 

There are pragmatical, conceited and obstinate jurists 
and Members of Congress who consider themselves a 
head and shoulders taller than Mr. Evarts, but their 
heads lack his fineness and culture of brain, and their 
shoulders the width to lit such a broad mantle as he 
wears. There are few lawyers so adroit in the man- 
agement of cases, few that have his versatility and 
force of mind. As a statesman he has shown pure 
patriotism, a sterling love of liberty and wise discre- 
tion. He has a rod for the despot, a hammer to break 
the chain of the slave, and he flies the flag of stars in 
the presence of the tories and princes of Europe. 
When, as report runs, one of the lords of the law at the 
Geneva Conference, snapped at Mr. Evarts indignant- 
ly and discourteously, he was astonished and alarmed 
at the reply he got from the American for his impu- 
dence, for the lash was administered with such vigor it 
cut through the scarlet sash and mutilated the stars of 
the crusty aristocrat. 

The following trifle shows the reader, in a small way, 
the free and easy hnmor of our hero : 



William M. Evarts. 85 

At a recent dinner given at the Union League Club, in New 
York, to Mr. Thomas C. Acton, upon his aiDpointment to the 
office of United States Assistant Treasurer, presided over by Mr. 
Evarts, late Secretary of State, Mr. Luther R. Marsh in his speech 
said he wished to know from headquarters whether " the inci- 
dent he had that morning cut from the Whitehall Remew — the 
leading social and literary journal of London — was really true, 
before it was permitted to pass into authentic history." He then 
read the paragraph, which stated that Secretary Evarts, taking 
his Thanksgiving dinner at Windsor, Vt., replied to the inquiry 
" what part of the turkey he would have," that it was " quite in- 
consequential to one of his recognized abstemiousness and super- 
sensitive stomachic nervation whether he be tendered an infinites- 
imal portion of the opaque nutriment of the nether extremities, 
the superior fraction of a pinion, or a snowy cleavage from the 
cardiac region." Mr. Marsh said as this turkey was assuming 
international proportions, and rivaling our own blessed and 
screaming eagle, he would like to ask the Secretary as to its ver- 
ity, and not rely simply on the strong internal evidence of its 
truth. The Secretary was placed in a difficult position, but was 
equal to the emergency, and said he had been wondering what 
the Loudon editor had in his mind when he penned that para- 
graph ; he concluded that it was an attempted condensation of a 
voluminous dispatch of his from our Government to the several 
Governments of Europe against the dismemberment of Turfiey. 
"But," said he, "the incident is not accurately recited. The 
simple fact is that, according to custom on this anniversary, I 
had a roasted New England goose, well stufied with sage, with 
plenty of apple-sauce and the usual accompaniments. At the 
close of the meal I said, ' My children, you now see the differ- 
ence between the condition of affairs before and after dinner. 
You then saw a goose stuffed with sage ; now you see a sage 
stuffed with goose.' " The applause which followed the Secre- 
tary's happy explanation showed how well he had escaped from 
the embarrassing corner. 

He does not object to a joke against himself. At a 



86 Representative Men. 

dinner in ]S~ew York, he said in substance : " For the 
amusement of my h'ttle daughter I sent a donkey to 
my country home in Yermont. It was not much larger 
than a sheep. Tlie child had never heard until a day or 
two after the arrival of the animal the lamentable voice 
of the creature. Struck by the sadness of its tone, she 
wrote in great haste for me to return immediately, 
stating as a reason that the donkey was so lonely with- 
out me." 

Mr. Evarts is tall, thin and pale, and would not, with 
his head covered, be considered by those unacquainted 
with him, as a remarkable man. He usually wears a hat 
that is better suited to St. Patrick's day in the march 
than it is to the head of one of our foremost men. 
Not only does he ignore style, but size also, for his hat 
drops down over his forehead almost to his eyes, re- 
minding the observer of what Sir John Suckling said 
of John Ford, the poet : 

"In the dumps John Ford alone by himself sat, 
With folded arms and a melancholy hat." 

Although he does not consult the fashion magazines, 
and does not trouble himself about " the tit of his coat 
or the tie of his cravat, he always has the look of a 
gentleman, which is difficult if not impossible to de- 
scribe." " Gaum latet res ipsa notissimaP We in- 
stinctively know a gentleman when we meet him, '' as 
the lion does the true prince," even when he appears 
in ill-fitting garments. Carelessness in such matters is 
preferred to dandyism. The man who is endowed with 
self-poise and complete control of his features, his feet, 
his hands and especially the entire mastery of his appe- 



William M. Evarts. 8/ 

lites and passions, will liave ease, grace and dignity 
without aiiy assumption. Mr. Evarts, naturally nerv- 
ous and sensitive, has disciplined himself by the exer- 
cise of a strong will, and remains master of himself, 
hence he is not easily discomposed whenever he is 
called upon to speak or act. We are a sovereign peo- 
ple, and care less for the elegance of the fop than we 
do for the dignity of the true democrat, the majesty of 
the kingly man. 

Mr. Evarts has a large head, but his self-control and 
sustaining force enable him to endure the wear and tear 
of his busy intellectual life. He is a profound, not to 
say an intense, thinker, and were he endowed with the 
consuming passion and impulse which characterized the 
organization of Choate, he would require more of the 
vital temperament to enable him to accomplish the vast 
amount of work he finds in his ofiice and at the bar. 
He is a student of character, a judge of the intellectual 
peculiarities of men, so that he can read their minds, 
and with his power of insight see how to move, con- 
vince and control them. His ideality makes him poetic 
and eloquent, and gives him, with his refined taste and 
culture, the mastery of a pure and elegant diction, and 
creates a love for the beautiful in nature and in art. 

This eminent speaker, lawyer and statesman has won 
the confidence and admiration of all parties, literary, 
social and political, and he is held in grateful esteem 
for the invaluable service he has rendered to letters, to 
society and to the nation. For many years he has dis- 
tinguished himself by his able conduct of many of the 
most important causes in the highest conrts, and by his 
fidelity and his brilliant management he has secured a 



88 Representative Men. 

large clientage, and with it a loftj position in his pro- 
fession. At public gatlierings, entertainments and re- 
ceptions he has few rivals as a spontaneous speaker. On 
such occasions he becomes an encyclopedia of fact, wit 
and humor, and his logic and eloquence shine out with 
the most attractive splendor. If the reader will take a 
second glance at his portrait he will see an earnest, 
thoughtful face, a high, broad forehead, bushy eye- 
brows shading eyes that seem to have the vision of not 
only outsight, but of insight and foresight, and a mouth 
that can be mirthful in a season of jollitj, while it indi- 
cates firmness that will not yield. 




CYRUS W. FIELD. 



PLATE IX. 



Cyrus W. Field, 

THE MASTER OF THE OCEAN CABLE, 



" From coral rocks the sea-plants lift 
Their boughs where the tides and billows flow ; 
The water is calm and still below ; 
For the winds and wa^es are absent there." 

— Percival. 

CYKUS WILLIAMS FIELD was born in the town 
of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in the year 1820. 
Young Cyrus was educated at Stockbridge, having for 
his school associates the Sedgwicks and others who have 
since distinguished themselves in the world of letters 
and politics and theology ; indeed, Berkshire county 
can boast of a longer list of illustrious names than any 
other county in that grand old eagle's nest of freemen — 
Massachusetts. 

When eighteen years of age, Cyrus found employ- 
ment in A. T. Stewart's dry-goods store in New York. 
He remained in the service of that Titan of traders 
about twelve months, when he went to Lee, Massachu- 
setts, and engaged as a clerk in the office of his brother, 
Matthew Field. Eighteen months afterward he went to 
Westfield, Massachusetts, and became the junior member 
of E. Boot & Co.'s paper firm, which failed a few years 
afteiAvard, and left Mr. F. overwhelmed in debt ; but 
he compromised with his creditors, and opened a 
paper commission house in the city of Kew York. 
The principal paper dealers in the city of ISTew 

(89) 



90 Representative Men. 

York, for a long time refused to recognize him as one 
of their trade, because he did business in such an hum- 
ble way with what thej considered a small capital ; but 
he was industrious and prompt, up early and late, and 
always at the post of duty. For years he did not see 
his children but once a w^eek (from Sunday night until 
the next Sunday morning), for on week-days he was up 
by sunrise, and might be seen hurrying past the un- 
opened stores early in the morning with his dinner-pail 
in his hand. His doors and windows were the first to 
welcome the morning light on the street where he 
traded. At this time he was his own salesman, book- 
keeper, cashier and porter. He was always exact and 
methodical in the management of his business, and pre- 
cise in his personal habits. He had a place for every- 
thing, and everything in its place ; he had a time for 
everything, and filled up the aggregate of the day with 
the items of daily duty in their regular order. For 
instance, at noon, exactly at such a time, no matter 
who happened to be present, he would spread a napkin 
on his desk, take out the " cold bite" from the tin pail, 
and eat his dinner. 

In about ten years he built up an immense business, 
a business which amounted to more than a million of 
dollars per annum. He had settled with his creditors 
in Westfield ; but now he sought a new settlement and 
paid them in full, principal, interest and all; bought 
the homestead on which his father lived as a ten- 
ant, and gave it to the old gentleman, at the same time 
investing funds for him, so that the interest would 
yield him a handsome support for life. Of coui'se the 
jealous paper dealers were now compelled to recognize 



Cyrus W. Field. 91 

him, and the little pocket bank at Westfield which had 
refused to discount his paper was on its knees at his feet. 
Mr. Field is a very sociable, generous man, but so 
practical, that, during business hours, he attends to his 
business first, no matter how noted the person who 
would tempt him to indulge in the luxury of a lazy 
tete-a-tete. In person, he is tall and thin; has light 
hair, blue eyes, sharp angular features, and he hur- 
ries along the street with half-closed eyes, as though 
his head was a galvanic battery, and he was afraid the 
electricity would escape before the cable could get in 
working order. He is of the nei-vous temperament, 
and we will here record a fact to show its influence 
upon his fortunes. This fact, with others I have hastily 
recorded, were obtained from a distinguished gentle- 
man who has known Mr. Field from his boyhood. 
This gentleman (our informant) inquired of Thurlow 
Weed if he was acquainted with Mr. Field. " Oh, yes," 
yes," replied our political Warwick ; " soon after his bill 
passed Congress, and while it was waiting for the sig- 
nature of President Pierce, I was occasionally at the 
White House, and one day, while engaged in conversa- 
tion with the President, he remarked that Mr. Field 
had called on him so frequently, and urged him so ear- 
nestly to sign the bill, he (Field) had become a source 
of annoyance." "It is rumored," said Mr. Weed, 
" that you have refused to sign the bill ? " "I will sign 
the bill," replied Mr. Pierce, " but I will not \>q forced 
to do it. I shall take my own time for it." " You do 
not know Mr. Field," continued Mr. Weed ; " he is 
one of the kindest and best of men ; but he is so nerv- 
ous and so much excited you will kill him by with- 



92 Representative Men. 

holding your signature." " I have no wish to torture 
the man," said the President. At this moment Sidney- 
Webster, the private secretary, came into the room and 
announced Mr. Field. '' Pray sign his bill," said Mr. 
Weed. "I will," said the President. He did so, and 
Mr. Weed remarked that he never saw such a change 
in the countenance of a man before. Mr. Field's face 
was radiant with happiness. 

The Field family, like the Sedgwick and Beecher 
families, is distinguished for the superiority of its 
members. Timothy Field, the oldest, left home in 
early manhood, and went to South America, where he 
married a lady of great fortune. David Dudley Field, 
LL.D., is one of the most eminent lawyers at the New 
York Bar. Matthew D. Field, who failed in the paper 
business at WestHeld, got up again, and has since been 
elected a member of the Massachusetts Senate. Jona- 
than D. Field has been a member of the Massachusetts 
Senate and Democratic candidate for Secretary of State. 
S. F. Field is a graduate of Williams College, and has 
been judge of the Supreme Court of the State of Cali- 
fornia. Henry M. Field is a graduate of Williams Col- 
lege, and at the age of eighteen was a settled minister 
of the gospel. He went to St. Louis and distinguished 
himself as a preacher of great power. He is now the 
editor and proprietor of the ^New York Evangelist. 

Cyrus W. Field is truly a bright man — he seemed to 
be endowed with the gift of foresight. The sneers and 
jeers of staid men who pronounced him a fool and a 
fit candidate for a strait-jacket, did not drive him 
from the straight line of duty. With interminable in- 
dustry and unconquerable perseverance he pursued the 



Cyrus W. Field. 93 

object of his ambition. The stock of the Atlantic 
Telegraph Company was hawked about the streets and 
became the sport of speculators. When his " paper 
house" went down in the commercial crisis, grave men 
attributed the failure to the visionary character of Mr. 
Field ; but he had a heart that never failed — a capital 
stock of hope and courage that carried him safely through 
all this tumnlt of opposition. The reverses of fortune — 
the entreaties of friend s-7-the opposition of enemies — 
the ridicule of conceited wiseacres — the untoward events 
of the great enterprise — the backing out of directors — 
the resistance of the winds and the waves, did not dis- 
hearten him. He believed that an all-wise and over- 
ruling Providence would direct him ; indeed he re- 
marked to the Rev. Mr. Adams, of New York, that he 
believed God would prosper him in his effort, and 
earnestly entreated to be remembered at the altar of 
private and public worship. 

Is it possible to conceive a spectacle more sublime 
than that which is presented in the eventful history of 
this remarkable man ? A mere boy he embarks in 
business and is prostrated by the mismanagement or 
miscalculations of his seniors, but he falls only to re- 
bound higher than before. A great thought troubles 
him — he wishes to embody it into a deed and unite the 
old world with the new ; so he asks the Congress of 
the United States to assist him ; and after a vast deal 
of congressional gas had been consumed his request is 
begrudgingly granted. He crosses the ocean, forms a 
company, raises a fund, obtains the assistance of two 
nations, and with his cable on the war-ships he links 
the continents. Now where are the Wall Street 



94 Representative Men. 

brokers who made Lis paper the sport of street specu- 
lations ? Where is the little snob who refused to honor 
his drafts? Where are the human sharks who had 
opened their mouths and sharpened their teeth to de- 
vour him ? Where are the snarling critics who pre- 
dicted his utter failure and held him personally re- 
sponsible for every change in the weather and every 
flaw in the cable ? They are nowhere, and Field is the 
man of the age. He has worked a miracle, and the 
generations of men will honor his memoiy through all 
future time. 

The foregoing was written a score and more years 
ago, and I see no reason whatever for changing it. 
Mr. Field is now a millionaire, and the work he has 
done will win for him the gratitude of unborn millions. 
The old world and the new are now next-door neigh- 
bors. The lightning is a messenger, constantly crossing 
the sea on a bridge of wire, with personal and public 
intelligence. The civilized peoples are grouped within 
hailing signals by the genius and energy of this perse- 
vering and inspired Yankee. Xerxes attempted to 
chain the waves, and failed. Our " Cyrus," with a 
chain of lightning, made the ocean do his bidding, and 
carry his torch from sea to sea, and from shore to 
shore, without putting out the light. The following 
lines by the writer, were written at a time when the 
nation was shouting songs and lifting banners to honor 
Cyrus W. Field :' 

Under the ocean waves afar, 
Where the beautiful mermaids are ; 
Beyond the light of sun or star, 

Or the sound of the cannon's greeting, 



Cyrus W. Field. 95 

The uncoiled cable lies unseen, 
Resting on sea-weed dark and green ; 
A fiery artery between 
The hemispheres with lightning beating. 

Lodging here on a mountain tall, 
Leaning there on an island wall, 
Arching above a crystal hall ; 

Touching the trees — the ocean laurel 
Sweeping for leagues the ocean bed, 
Softly pulsing where sleep the dead. 
Who heed not a word the world has said, 

In halls of white and crimson coral. 

Scaring monsters up to the lees, 
Breaking the branches from the trees. 
That grow in gardens under the seas. 

Unhindered by the waves' oppression. 
Reaching afar from sea to sea, 
Lighting a pathway for the free. 
Flashing the news of unity. 

Kindling the torch of true jDrogression. 

The cable brings the good times uigher, 
And speaks with cloven tongues of fire. 
Of plans of culture lifted higher, 

In varied speech of many peoples. 
The lightning strikes a tyrant world, 
And slavery from its throne is hurled. 
And freedom's banners are unfurled 

From roof-trees and from ringing steeples. 

From C(mtinent to continent 
The flaming message often sent, 
Beneath the bending firmament, 

Has solved the problem, made it clearer. 
That genius, culture, science, art. 
And thinking brain and beating heart, 
Can bring the nations long apart. 

In faith and trust and honor nearer. 



Thaddeus Stevens, 

THE LATE REPUBLICAN LEADER. 



" O, duty, if that name thou lova, 
Who art a light to guard a rod 
To check the erring and reprove, 
Thou who art victory and law." 



—Wordsworth. 



SEYEEAL years since I visited Lancaster, Pennsyl- 
vania, and dnring my stay in that quiet little city, 
I called to see Thaddeus Stevens. He was then one of 
the greatest living public men in the Keystone State. 
He was recognized by many as the grandest American 
Commoner of the century. With his party he was a 
champion, a leader, a chief. In Congress he was promi- 
nent as a logical debater and a fiery radical, and at home 
he was a local king, whose word was law, whose sugges- 
tion was the shadow of a statute to come. He was then an 
old man, and physically infirm. I say that he was old as 
we count the years of human life, for he was in his seven- 
ty-third year, but he could write and speak with a vigor 
that few men of fifty command. Thirty years of pub- 
lic life, fighting with the minority against a fierce ma- 
jority, for justice and liberty, had not bent his form 
nor crushed liis spirit. In his contest for human rights 
he never failed to honor the fact that " color is not a 
crime.'" Without flinching, he braved the odium which 
his love of equal rights for all brought upon him. He 
favored the education of black children in our common 
(96) 




HON. THADDETJS STEVENS. 



PLATE X. 



Thaddeiis Stevens. 97 

schools, the enlisting of black raen for the army and 
navj^, and the lifting of the entire race of negroes in 
this country out of the chains and fetters and gyves of 
slavery not only, but into the high sphere of civib'za- 
tion enjoyed by the whites. His voice and his vote 
had always been on the side of oppressed humanity, 
and he lived to see his ideas grow into institutions. I 
found this grand old man sitting in his library. He 
had been bored all the morning by little local politi- 
cians, the little great men of the town, who think the 
world was created that they might govern it, and that 
when they fail to make their calling and election sure, 
" chaos will come again." He was in good spirits and. 
in better health than usual, notwithstanding (to use his 
own words) " the newspaper attacks on his constitu- 
tion." He gave me a cordial invitation to sit down 
and chat with him, and -without reserve gave his 
opinion of some of the men who were public property, 
not in the sense of being purchasable commodities, but 
in the sense that they were then alive and active in the 
domain of politics. 

He applauded Horace Greeley (who was then the 
boss editor) for his ability and integrity, but censured 
him for bailing Jefferson Davis. He considered the 
Tribune a great force not weakened by the mistakes of 
its editor-in-chief. He had little affection for Senator 
Fessenden, because he considered him parsimonious, 
and he especially dishked his dealing so gently with 
Andy Johnson. He did not consider Mr. Chase a 
great statesman. Speaking of some national men, who 
are yet living, he said, " Trumb-uU is a Eepublican 
perforce, while he is constitutionally conservative." He 
5 



gS Representative Men. 

thought Senator Sherman had too high an opinion of 
himself. Edmonds of Vermont and Morgan of New 
York were the subjects, with others, of criticism, 
touched up with a little coloring of commendation. I 
have before me a scrap from the Christian Intelligencer^ 
w^hich reads as follows : " Thaddeus Stevens, in early 
and middle age, was a very handsome man. His face 
was as distinguished as his figure was well made, the 
latter being marred only by that unfortunate deformity, 
a club-foot. He was exceedingly sensitive upon the 
subject of this misfortune, yet it was a blessing in dis- 
guise, for it caused him to sympathize with, and be 
deeply interested in, those who were lame or deformed 
in any way, and many instances are told of his great 
generosity toward such." At the time I saw him, I 
wrote as follows in my note-book : "Mr. Stevens is six 
feet in height, rather slender now, but in his prime he 
must have had a powerful frame and great physical 
strength. His gray eyes are full of lire and look you 
squarely in the face when he talks. He has an eagle 
nose, indicative of ability to command. His compressed 
lips show decision and iirmness, and his broad, high 
forehead is a magnificent dome of thought. He had 
the reputation of being a good neighbor, a true friend, 
a generous giver, and a genuine patriot. He would 
carry the standard of stars and march to the music of 
progress over the continent, but he had little patience 
with those who did not keep step with him. He 
climbs the highest altitudes of progress, and beholds 
with the vision of a seer a new civilization without 
caste, without chains, without injustice, with a free 
press, a free school, free soil, and free men. 



Thaddeus Stevens. 99 

" No carven statue, not a silent spliinx, 
Is our great commoner, he boldly thinks. 
And his brave heart, which no defeats eclipse. 
Beats thoughts to eloquence upon his lips. 
A radical, one of the uncrowned kings, 
He goes down to the deepest roots of things. 
And pulls up flowers, and weeds, and even wheat, 
If in his way, and spurns them with his feet. 
His eagle eyes have foresight, and they see 
The future, and the nation's destiny. 
When our stout ship of State was in the storm 
Of thunder fire, and crimson rain, the form 
Of our bold leader stood erect and tall, 
Under the flag which now floats over all. 
The flag, where stripes will not, long as it waves. 
Be duplicated on the backs of slaves. 
O firm, strong leader, reconstruct the State, 
And make it just and free as well as great. 
May the best thought that's forged within the brain 
Be merciful and just, then not in vain 
Thy speech incisive and thy critic tone. 
For laureled Liberty shall hold her throne." 

Mr. Stevens was born at Peaeham, Caledonia Coun- 
ty, Yermont, April 4, 1793 ; died in Washington, D. 
C, August 11, 1868. His parents were poor and un- 
able to help him, but though he was lame and sickly 
his resolute soul enabled him to help himself. By 
hard study he qualified for college, and was graduated 
with honor at Dartmouth in 1814. At once he went 
to work, teaching school and studying law, and soon se- 
cured a large practice. In 1828 he entered the political 
field, and with great ardor objected to the election of 
General Jackson, acting with zeal in behalf of the 
Whig party. In 1833, and for a number of years fol- 
lowing, he was a member of the Pennsylvania Legislat- 



100 Representative Men. 

ure, and distinguished himself as an opponent to 
slavery. In 1838 he rendered important service to the 
State as Canal Commissioner. In 1842 he moved to 
Lancaster, Pa., opened a law office, and devoted six 
years to the practice of his profession. He was elected 
a Representative in Congress in 1848 and re-elected in 
1850. There he eloquently and persistently opposed 
the fugitive slave law and the Kansas-J^Tebraska bill. In 
1858 he was again honored with a seat in Congress 
and held it till he died. As a lawyer he easily dis- 
tanced many competitors, and took his place among the 
first men of the nation at the head of the bar. As a 
manufacturer and business man his enterprise and dili- 
gence were crowned with wealth, and when the rebels 
burned down his iron works the loss of $100,000 did 
not cripple him in his affairs so that he had to stop busi- 
ness. Mr. J. E. Barr, of Lancaster, at the time of my 
visit, had just published a life-like portrait of the dis- 
tinguished statesman. It is finely engraved on steel, 
and is the only likeness of Mr. Stevens approved by 
him. The lofty forehead, the searching eyes, the com- 
pressed mouth, the strongly-marked features are per- 
fectly developed in this picture. I value this portrait 
very highly, not alone because it is an accurate repre- 
sentation of the face and expression of the heroic man, 
but because it was presented to me by its prototype as a 
memento. At the present writing there is considerable 
excitement in relation to the property that he left. 
His estate was left to his nephew, on condition he 
should keep sober for ^-wq years, with successive 
" chances " of five years each in case of a first failure. 
As the conditions have not been complied with, the es- 



Thaddens Stevens. loi 

tate is claimed by the residuary legatees, viz. : the 
trustees of a colored orphan asylum to which it was to 
revert. Claims are also made by individual relations. 
His sympathy for the colored people did not exhaust 
itself in congressional speeches and in his efforts to se- 
cure enactments for their protection and education. 
Here is a picture of him, drawn, shall we say, " with 
envious gall and wormwood," by an English writer, and 
published in the London Quarterly Eevievj : " Day 
after day a strange and ghastly iigure rose within the 
walls of the House, and heaped bitter imprecations up- 
on the South, and upon all who came from it or went 
into it — a weird and shrunken-looking man, bent in 
figure, and club-footed, over whose deeply-lined and 
pallid countenance a strange gleam was at times shot 
from his sunken eyes. Accustomed to all the dark and 
intricate ways which lead to political life in the United 
States, stern and pitiless in nature, and hating the 
Southern people with a superhuman hatred, no more 
willing instrument for exciting sectional animosity 
could have been found than this veteran of the Penn- 
sylvania arena, Thaddeus Stevens. His voice was 
usually quavering and feeble, but when excitement 
stirred him — as it did whenever any plea was offered 
from the South — he threw a certain tone into it which 
made it ring all over the House, and inspired those 
who had been presumptuous enough to oppose him 
with an extraordinary dread of his influence and 
power." 1^0, he did not hate the Southern people — 
he hated slavery as O'Connell did. The Irish orator 
and statesman refused to shake hands with a famous 
American editor because he defended the " peculiar in- 



102 Representative Men. 

stitution "; but he did not hate the citizens of the United 
States without discrimination ! A man may hate the sin 
and yet not hate the sinner. His ways were neither dark 
nor intricate, for he battered breaches through the de- 
fenses of slavery and let in the h"ght, and his ringing 
blows echoed across the continent. The sectional ani- 
mosity spoken of was from the '' cotton seed sown by 
the devil on the Southern soil," as Wendell Phillips 
puts it, and which sprouted in strife and bore the 
blood-red blossom of war. His voice may have qua- 
vered, but it was heard afar, and it made the oppressors 
tremble as the roar of the lion shakes the nerves of the 
traveler in the desert. It is true that a certain class of 
Cono;ressmen dreaded and feared his influence and 
power. He may have been old and shrunken and lame 
and pallid, but he was able to defeat the strongest man 
that dared to measure lances with him in the arena of 
debate in the House of Kepresentatives. 




THOMAS C. ACTON. 
From Harper's Weekly. 

PUATE XI. 



Thomas C. Acton. 



" Give me a spirit that on life's rou<?h sea 
Loves to have his sails filled with a lusty wind, 
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, 
And his rapt ship run on her sides so low, 
That she drinks water and her keel ploughs air. 
There is no danger to a man that knows 
Whore life and death is, there's not any law 
Exceeds his knowledge, neither is it needful 
That he should stoop to any other law. 
He goes before them and commands them all ; 
That to himself is a law rational." 

—George Chapman, 

MK. THOMAS C. ACTON", recently appointed As- 
sistant Treasurer in 'New York, has been a prom- 
inent figure in public life more than a quarter of a 
century. He was born in New York in 1823, and be- 
came an active politician in early manhood. In 1850 
he became Assistant Deputy County Clerk under Geo. 
W. Kiblet and afterward Deputy Eegistrar for nearly 
six years under J. J. Doane and Wm. Miner. In 1860 
he was appointed Police Commissioner of New York by 
Gov. E. D. Morgan. He held that laborious and responsi- 
ble post for nine years, seven of which he was President 
of the Board. During this service he enforced, with 
characteristic courage and fidelity, the provisions of the 
excise law, by which, had he been allowed free scope, 
he would have expunged the city debt in sixteen years. 
His untiring devotion to the duties of his office impair- 

(103) 



I04 Representative Men. 

ed his health, and he was forced to resign his position. 
The necessity of that step was deeply deplored by the 
best people of all sects and parties in the city. The 
friends of law and order were especially and gratefully 
obliged to him, and were outspoken in their praise of 
his eminent executive ability and of his efficient execu- 
tion of the excise law. Under his direction the police 
system became the marvel of the metropolis, because of 
its excellent discipline and perfection of organization. 
He gave quiet Sabbaths to the city, diminished the 
number of arrests, drove the fiend of intemperance 
from hundreds of homes, made it safe for women and 
children to walk the streets on their way to church, 
lessened the expenses of the taxpayers, and added vast- 
ly to the income of the treasury. In 1870 President 
Grant appointed him to the office of Superintendent of 
the United States Assay Office, a situation he filled for 
nearly twelve years, with credit to the country and honor 
to himself. 

Mr. Acton is a lawyer by profession, but he has never 
engaged in legal practice. It was due mainly to his 
efforts, with the aid of Secretary Folger, G. H. Andrews, 
D. B. Eaton, and Mr. Laimbier, that the Legislature 
passed the bill providing for the present Board of 
Health, as well as the bill for the paid Fire Depart- 
ment. His grandest achievement was the part he took 
in putting down the draft riots. That noble man 
of honored memory. Superintendent Kennedy, was 
wounded and disabled on the first day of the outbreak, 
and the entire management of the police force devolved 
on Mr. Acton. His sleepless vigilance, his unyielding 
energy, his foresight, heroism and executive force, and 



Thomas C. Acton. 105 

his knowledge of the political chess-board enabled him 
to move his men advantageously and save the city. 

The reader can form an idea of his Herculean task if 
I recall in brief an account of the riot. 

On Monday morning, July 13, 1863, being at that 
time on the staff of the I^ew York Tribune, I hastened 
to my post of duty, and found in the business office, Mr. 
George Snow, the financial editor of the " American 
Thunderer." He was pale with excitement and alarm, 
for he had witnessed the rising of the riot cloud, which 
was bigger than a man's hand, and charged with wrath 
and fire. At his request, I directed my steps toward 
the scene of strife. I found a blockade of cars on the 
tracks in the Bowery, and a great crowd of angry men 
and women on the Second and Third Avenues. About 
fifty soldiers, armed with muskets, marched to the 
scene of strife to quell the disturbance. They were 
immediately disarmed by the mob, and their guns were 
leveled at these helpless volunteers, who, deeming dis- 
cretion the b3tter part of valor, fled for safety. Mr. 
Kennedy, the brave and efficient Superintendent of the 
police force, having been disabled by the brutal assault 
of the rioters, Mr. Thomas C. Acton, the President of 
the Board of Police Commissioners, took command of 
the force. The important and responsible position re- 
quired tact, promptness, courage, and tireless watchful- 
ness. It was my duty, as one of the attaches of the press, 
to watch the events of those sad but memorable days, and 
report the occurrences for publication. I write, there- 
fore, from the standpoint of an eye-witness of much 
that I shall record in this condensed and hasty sketch. 
Mr. Acton's position was laborious, critical, dangerous, 

5* 



io6 Representative Men. 

and required as much decisioUj sagacity, and pluck as it 
would to lead an army to battle. He had more than two 
thousand men under his command, and his tii^st act of 
importance was to concentrate the force, seize and con- 
trol the telegraphic department, and to stand ready to 
meet any emergency, and this was at a time when the 
great city was like a volcano with eruptions breaking 
out at every point. The rioters made free and sav- 
age use of brickbats, paving-stones, and clubs, and as- 
saulted the police from the roofs of tenement-houses. 
Many of them used guns, pistols, and other deadly 
weapons, with, in some instances, deadly effect. 

The gallant policemen, undismayed by the threats 
and assaults of the rioters, charged into their dwellings 
and up to the roofs, from which they were hurling dan- 
gerous missiles. These hand-to-hand conflicts resulted 
in the defeat and the driving away of the wretches, 
some of them dropping from the windows in their cow- 
ardly flight, and finding themselves arrested by a death- 
warrant in the hands of fate. The vicinity of Brooks 
Brothers' clothing house was the scene of terrible strife. 
The gas was cut off', and the lights extinguished in the 
street lamps and shops in the neighborhood. Thick as 
ants, the thieves and burglars swarmed from the build- 
ings, loaded with goods they had stolen ; but great num- 
bers of them were brought to terms by the lively use 
of the locust, and on their knees they shrieked and 
roared for mercy. 

A negro face was to the mob what a red rag is to a 
bull. Hotels, restaurants, barber-shops, and kitchens 
were searched for colored men and women. Street 
cars and omnibuses were under the surveillance of bru- 



Thomas C. Acton. 107 

tal fellows, who insulted and maltreated passengers 
wliose skin was of a darker hue than theirs. E"egro 
truckmen, coachmen, and servants had to leap from 
their vehicles and run to the nearest shelter for safety. 
Their dwellings w^ere stoned and sacked, and in some 
instances set on fire. Hundreds of them sought refuge 
in the precinct stations, and but for the vigilance and 
nerve of the police, who, under instructions from Mr. 
Acton, protected to a great extent their lives, there 
would have been general robbery, incendiarism, and 
slaughter. 

All this time, day after day, the rioters continued at 
their infernal work, stoning doors and windows, firing 
private and public buildings, injuring and stealing 
property, assaulting and murdering negroes, whose 
crime was their color, whose sin was only skin deep, 
and not a few of whom had to pay the penalty of their 
property and their lives. The mob had a satanic spite 
against the editor-in-chief of \hQ Tribune. The ring- 
leaders bore a banner on which was inscribed, " ^Ye will 
hang old Greeley on a sour apple-tree.'^'^ They set fire 
to the front room of the Tribune office, and con- 
tinued shouting, yelling, howling, and threatening to 
burn the building and kill the inmates. They filled 
the air w^ith the stench of sulphury speech ; the im- 
mense mass of men and boys grew w^orse and worse ; 
the cloud became denser and darker, and the muttering 
of the storm, to all human appearance, was about to 
break out in a tempest of thunder, fire, and crimson 
rain, when a large body of policemen, lead by Inspector 
Carpenter, came to the rescue, and with their clubs 
struck right and left, their blows falling with heavy 



Io8 Representative Men. 

thuds on the thick skulls of the storuny cowards, who 
fled like frightened sheep from Printing House Square 
to their dens and garrets and low hiding - places. 
About this time the employes of the Tribune establish- 
ment, editors, reporters, type-setters, and pressmen, 
were furnished with arms and hand-grenades, and had 
the rioters returned and attempted to make a second 
assault, they would have met with a warm reception. 
The attaches of the Tribune office were taught the 
use of the rifle, by a soldier sent to the office for that 
purpose. Horace Greeley shouldered his musket 
with the rest, and continued, during the days of the 
riot, to denounce the mob in his paper. The para- 
graphs in his columns were terrible as hot-shot from a 
cannon ; for the mob did not scare him in the least, nor 
cause him to moderate his tone of brave denunciation. 
He told the ruffians that they were thieves and 
murderers, and his Saxon words were bullets for justice, 
for patriotism, for liberty and peace. The hooting and 
mocking cheers, and the blood-thirsty threatenings did 
not disturb the calm serenity of his mind ; for he would, 
when tired, throw himself upon the sofa in the " sanc- 
tum," and go immediately to sleep. It was with diffi- 
culty he could be kept from the street when the rioters 
filled the Square and the adjoining streets. Several 
unoffending colored men were murdered in cold blood 
by these brutal men and boys. One of the most 
atrocious deeds was the burning of the Colored 
Orphans' Asylum. On the afternoon of the 13th of 
July, an angry mob of three thousand rioters attacked 
the building and set fire to it. At the time of the as- 
sault there were over two hundred children in the 



Thomas C. Acton, lOg 

asylum. Through the bravery and coolness of the 
officer in charge, these wards of the city escaped at the 
rear of the building just as the mob effected an entrance 
at the front. Everything that could be stolen was 
taken away, and what was left was destroyed. The 
chairs and desks were broken into kindling-wood, and 
the building, in the face of the efforts of the police and 
firemen, was burned to the ground. 

This is but a faint outline of the dreadful condition 
of affairs in the city of ITew York during the riot 
week. It began on the first day of the draft, ostensi- 
bly in disapproval of it ; but soon it assumed the phase 
of pillage, and persecution of the colored people. 
Business was paralyzed ; gangs of robbers prowled over 
the city day and night. It was not safe for a decent 
man to walk the streets. The Metropolitan police, 
officers and men, under the leadership of Thomas C. 
Acton, won the confidence and applause of the city 
and the country. They saved public buildings, banks, 
private residences, and stores marked for destruction ; 
and they saved the great commercial center of wealth 
and trade from the clutches of the despoilers. 

The organized militia regiments were away from the 
city in the service of the Government at the time of 
the outbreak, but Mr. Acton's army was equal to the 
emergency. There was no hesitating, no sliirking, no 
faltering, no reluctance, no signs of disobedience in 
any quarter. On that memorable Monday and Tues- 
day, these brave men checkmated the rioters, drove them 
from their strongholds, and saved a vast amount of 
property, and doubtless prevented the loss of many 
lives. Their excellent discipline, their readiness to 



no Representative Men. 

rally, their well-concerted plans, their quick marches, 
their resolute movements on the mob, gave the banded 
hordes of incendiaries and rioters in their several 
localities little opportunity to test their strength. 

On the afternoon of the second day of the riot these 
gallant forces were aided by the military, who, with 
rare exceptions, fired, not over tlie heads of the rioters, 
but into the mob, killing, from first to last, more than 
a thousand men. The rioters killed seven white men 
and eleven blacks. 

In the aggregate, the property stolen, burned, and 
otherwise destroyed, amounted to more than one mil- 
lion, two hundred thousand dollars. I find in a recent 
issue of Harper's Weehly^ "A Souvenir of 1861," 
written by Mr. Acton, which will give the reader an 
idea of the terse, compact and graphic manner of the 
man, and bring to mind some of the striking events of 

1861. 

A SOUVENIR OF 1861. 

In the month of April, 1861, the Sixth Massachusetts Eegi- 
ment, on its way to Washington, while passing througli Balti- 
more, was fired upon by the rebel element. This act was after- 
ward disclaimed by the Confederates, and attributed to a band 
of rowdies always ready for mischief Nevertheless, the fact re- 
mained that armed opposition to the passage of Northern troops 
to the capital had commenced. 

It was necessary to support this regiment, and the Seventh 
New York was dispatched for that purpose to Annapolis by sea. 
Several days passed, and no news of its arrival reached New 
York : an impression (absurd, indeed, as it subsequently ap- 
peared) seized the public mind that New York's favorite regi- 
ment had met with some disaster — was annihilated, or perhaps 
famine-stricken. 

At that period I was connected with the Metropolitan police 



Thomas C.Acton. in 

as Commissioner, and shared the general feeling of anxiety 
which prevailed. I saw the necessity of obtaining some reli- 
able information with regard to the Seventh Regiment, in order 
to restore confidence, and quiet the alarm, which was becoming 
infectious. With this view I proceeded to the oflBce of the 
American Telegraph Company, then located at the southwest 
corner of Wall and Broad Streets, and found the operator to be 
an old fellow clerk, Mr. Moseley S. Roberts, and informed him 
that I wished all dispatches that came over the lines from the 
South submitted to the Metropolitan Police Commission of this 
city. I suggested to him that it would be sound policy to ap- 
point him as "special policeman detailed in charge of the Amer- 
ican Telegraph OflBce." 

I then returned to the oflBce of the Police Commissioners, and 
stated to them what I had already done. A meeting of the 
board, consisting of James Bowen, then President, John G. 
Bergen, and myself, was immediately called, and at once ap- 
pointed Moseley S. Roberts policeman detailed to act at the 
American Telegraph OflBce, in accordance with the plan which 
I had arranged. 

During the interval of suspense between the departure of the 
Seventh Regiment and i\\Q news of its arrival at Annapolis, a 
period of intense anxiety to the people of New York, Mr. James 
S. Wadsworth— all honor to his noble heart ! — of Geneseo, New 
York State, called at Police Headquarters to see his old friend 
John A. Kennedy, with whom he was associated in the State 
Constitutional Convention of 1846. 

Mr. Kennedy received him very kindly, but Mr. Wadsworth 
was feeling sad. 

" Kennedy," said he, " I am fifty years of age, and good for 
nothing. My country is suffering, and needs assistance. Is 
there anything I can do to aid her ? " 

" Yes," promptly and emphatically replied Kennedy, "you can 
do this : You can go back to Geneseo and raise a regiment of 
soldiers." 

"But," said W., "I know no more of military affairs than a 
child." 



112 Representative Men. 

" That does not matter," said K. " Return to Genesee, put 
out your posters, say that James S. Wadswortli will raise a 
regiment for his country, and you will succeed." 

These encouraging words of Mr. Kennedy inspired Mr. Wads- 
worth with patriotic emotion. ''I can do tliatl^'' he said, "and I 
xoill^ and fu7mish the means myself to i^ay for itP 

Mr. W. then left Police Headquarters, and met Mr. Thurlow 
Weed, from whom he endeavored to learn something definite 
concerning the absent New York Seventh. 

The possibility that it had landed, and was somewhere be- 
yond the means of communicating with the North, suffering 
from want of supplies, and perhaps from starvation, awakened 
the generous impulses in Mr. Wadsworth's heart, and he forth- 
with chartered the steamboat Kill Von Kull^ filled it with pro- 
visions, and sent it with a god-speed to the missing regiment, 
2ind paid for it himself. 

Early on the morning of the 23d of April, 1861, I was sent for 
by Mr. Roberts, who handed me the following dispatch : 

Annapolis, April 23. 
Constitution is safely moored at mouth of harbor. Competent force on 
board. One thousand five hundred troops at Annapolis, and more coming. 
AH well. No opposing force. 

When I stepped into Room No. 11, Astor House, to show this 
dispatcli to Mr. Weed, Mr. Wadsworth was present, and partici- 
pated in the general joy its intelligence afforded. 

Before, however, the opportunity occurred for him to raise the 
regiment which he contemplated, he was appointed General in 
the army, and promptly sent with a command to the front, 
where, at the Battle of the Wilderness, he consummated his last 
act of heroism and devotion to his country. 

" He died at the head of his brigade." 

No epitaph more fitting, or one more worthy of remembrance, 
could be inscribed over the grave of a brave and loyal soldier. 

Thomas C. Acton. 



The famous and intrepid Gen. Harvey Brown, who 
came to the rescue on the afternoon of the second day 



Thomas C.Acton. 113 

of the riot, and who rendered efficient service in co- 
operation witli the police, when complimented by many 
of the merchant princes and professional men of New- 
York, said, in a letter to the late Moses Taylor and 
others : " Gentlemen, I beg you to accept my grateful 
thanks for the kind and flattering letter with which you 
have honored me. The only merit I can claim in the 
performance of the duty which has given me the high 
distinction of yonr approbation is, that of an honest sin- 
gleness of purpose in seconding the very able and ener- 
getic efforts of the President of the Metropolitan police, 
Mr. Acton, to whom, in my opinion, more than to any 
other man, is due the credit of the early suppression 
of the riot." 

During the darkest days of the war of the rebellion, 
in the time of trial, peril and brutal lawlessness, the 
merchants, bankers and other business men formed 
the " Union League Club," which at once came to the 
rescue of the republic. Mr.. Acton was one of its ear- 
liest members, and one of its most active and prominent 
workers. This loyal force was organized in February, 
1863, and its object was to combine and concentrate the 
brains, hearts and fortunes of brave and true lovers 
of their country in the great commercial metropolis, to 
put down secession and rebellion, which had become 
rampant and ugly, threatening the friends of freedom 
and applauding the disunionists and copperheads. It 
was, what Gen. Sherman called it, " a school of patriots." 
At a dinner of its early members, given May 20, 1880, 
the late Dr. Bellows said : " And when our noble po- 
lice, whose honored memories have been invoked to- 
night, and whose noble presence is represented here in 



114 Representative Men. 

the waving, fresh hair of my friend Acton, dispersed 
the miserable mob of foreigners that would have made 
the city of New York a battle-ground, they sustained 
the Union League, and the Union League sustained 
them, in a manner never to be forgotten." The Club 
recruited colored troops and sent the first black regi- 
ment to the war; it advanced money to carry on the 
campaign ; its members were the agents and almoners 
of organizations in other cities ; it cared tenderly for the 
sick and wounded soldiers; it "helped two thousand 
men every night of the war"; it was represented at 
more than six hundred battles and skirmishes ; it was a 
constant aid to the medical department ; it inaugurated 
and sustained magnificently the great sanitary fair ; it 
filled with substitutes the spaces in regiments made 
vacant on bloody fields ; it encouraged Union men to 
overstep party lines and stand heart to heart for the life 
of the nation ; it was a courier bearing packages, letters, 
and dispatches from the dear ones at home to the brave 
ones at the front ; it was a nurse bearing the wounded 
from the scene of strife to the hospital, and there bind- 
ing the bleeding wounds of the suffering soldiers, watch- 
ing by their hammocks, supplying them with delicacies 
and encouraging them with soul-felt sympathy. 

At the suggestion of Mr. Acton the following lines 
were written in honor of the early members of the 
Union League Club, who were entertained at that 
memorable dinner. The lines were published in the 
New York Evening Post : 

Cheers for the grand old Union League, 
That helped in need to save our laud ! 



Thomas C. Acton. 

Disloyalty and dark intrigue 

Were scattered by its bolt and brand ! 
Where the Rebellion shook its bars, 
There its blue banner filled with stars, 
Threw a soft light across the line, 
Like the sweet smile of heaven divine. 



When the torn nation's life and death 

In the quick balances were laid, 
And thin scales:, moved by a breath, 

Might rise in light or fall in shade, 
This loyal league inspired by love. 
Armed and equipped like heirs of Jove, 
In- honor clad truth's coat of-mail — 
Cast swords and fortunes in the scale. 



Our merchant princes heard the call 

For aid to shield us from the foe. 
As guests haste to a festival, 

And kings to coronations go, 
They hastened to the flag, whose light 
Was to our land a flame as bright 
As pillared fire by night that led 
The Hebrews through the sea of red. 



Where patriotism softly blends 

With sweet and gentle courtesy, 
The brave of soul find dearer friends 
Than noblest men, to men can be. 
Mothers and sisters, daughters, wivea, 
Whose love is lasting as their lives, 
With their magnetic presence came. 
To cheer, and crown the task with fame. 



115 



1 1 6 Representative Men. 

The lightning and the thunder tones 

Of the untrammelled, fearless press, 
That shook the tyrants on their thrones, 
Was freedom's mighty force to bless. 
Its types were dragon's teeth that rose, 
Full armed a host, the lie to oppose, 
That State rights are the rights that we 
Should fuse with peace and unity. 



The League, with kindling prophecy. 

Felt that the music of the fight. 
For union, peace and harmony, 

Must come from keys both black and white. 
Then courage spurred on vast events, 
Then marched the negro regiments, 
And vindicated all we claim, 
For valor, manhood, worth and fame. 



The League sought suffrage free and wide. 

Despising not the dusky face. 
It watched the bill of rights, denied 

Too long to a poor suffering race. 
The river of reform it sent 
Through augean stalls of government, 
Now Peace clasps hands with honor here, 
And we breathe a pure atmospheie. 



Peace to the ashes of the dead, 
The dead that will forever live. 

A wreath of flowers, blue, white and red, 
And odor of true love we give. 

From stormy skies their mantles fell 

On shoulders he:e that wear them well. 



Thomas C.Acton, 1 17 

Their names are written -with the just, 
Tlieir deeds smell sweetly from the dust. 

Kow from the starlit arch above 

Lincoln beholds that his endeavor 
Has joined all kindred hearts in love, 

And made the nation one forever. 
The flag, borne through the battle blast, 
Whispers of Union from the mast 
Of every ship around the world 
That shows the stars and stripes unfurled. 

Mr. Acton's sixty years lean ligbtly upon him, for he 
seems to be as active and vigorous as he was a score of 
years ago. He is a man of medium height and good build, 
erect and energetic, quick in his walk, ready in his de- 
cisions, and emphatic in his utterance, a good talker in 
the circle of his friends, a manly man who never loses 
his grip on those he finds to be honorable and trust- 
worthy. His beautiful rural home in Connecticut is 
often the resort of literati and statesmen, who great- 
ly enjoy his hospitality. He was a severe disciplinarian, 
but to this day he is spoken of in terms of the truest re- 
spect and affection by members of the police force 
who served under his administration. 

No man in the city is better known than he. His 
finely-cut features, penetrating, grayish-blue eyes, com- 
pressed mouth that can give an order and say no in 
earnest, and his abundant supply of snow-white hair, 
make him a man of mark in the street or on the plat- 
form of public meetings. If he would allow himself to 
speak of himself in public, he could give a narrative of 



1 1 8 Representative Men. 

his experience that would be exceedingly interesting, and 
his eloquent delivery would add vastly to the charm of 
the subject. Mr. Acton's success is due in the main to 
his skill as an organizer, his power as a disciplinarian, 
his fairness and integrity in dealing with his subordi- 
nates, and his unbending courage and force of will. 




EDWIN BOOTH. 
From Earpei's Monthly. 
PLATE XII. 



Edwin Booth, 

THE PRINCE OF TRAGEDY IN AMERICA. 



" No man is lord of auything 
Till he communicates his part to others, 
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught 
Till he behold them formed in the applause 
Where they are extended, which like an arch reverberates 
The voice again, or like a gate of steel, 
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back 
His figure and his heart." 

— Shakespeare. 

EDWIN" BOOTH, the great actor, is forty -nine 
years of age. He lias been before the public 
more than thirty years, and no lover of the drama will 
dispute the fact that he is the best representative man 
of the American stage ; and when we consider his per- 
sonal as well as his professional worth, we must give him 
a foremost place with the leading men of the country 
and of the century. He made his first appearance as 
an actor at the Botston Museum September 10, 1849, 
in the " part of Tressil, in Gibber's version of Richard 
III." The writer recollects seeing his father, Junius 
Brutus Booth, one of the greatest tragedians of his 
time, or of any time, at the same theatre. This eccen- 
tric and wonderful man was on the stage from 1813 to 
1852, when he died, aged fifty-six years. Before he 
became an actor he had been a sailor, printer, painter, 
sculptor, and writer for the press. Driven from Lon- 

(119) 



120 Representative Men. 

don by the envy and jealousy of Edmnnd Kean, he 
came to America in 1821, and bought a farm near Bal- 
timore, where his son Edwin (the seventh of ten chil- 
dren), was born in ITovember, 1833, "on a night mem- 
orable for a great and splendid shower of meteors " — 
the precursors of a star of the iirst magnitude. Edwin 
accompanied his father in his wanderings from town to 
town, and shared with him the sorrows, hardships, and 
disappointments of his travels. His sad and strange 
experience during these days of trial gave a sombre 
color to his after-life, and changed the tone of a cheer- 
ful temperament to the gloom and melancholy which 
later on assisted him so materially in portraying the 
intellectual and emotional character of Hamlet. " Many 
years ago (remarks Mr. William Winter, the dramatic 
critic, in a sketch written for Ilarjper's Magazine)^ 
in Sacramento, the players had dressed for St. Pierre 
and Jaffier in Yenice Preserved. Edwin, as Jaffier, 
had put on a close-fitting robe of black velvet. ' You 
look like Hamlet,' the father said. ' Why don't you play 
it ? * He did not then foresee that his son would be 
the greatest and most distinguished Handet of his 
country and of his time." At Winter Garden Thea- 
tre, New York, he acted that part one hundred succes- 
sive nights. The same graphic writer, from whom 
I have just quoted, gives the following pen portraits 
of the two actors : 

The elder Booth was a short, spare, muscular man, with a 
splendid chest, a symmetrical Greek head, a pale countenance, a 
voice of wonderful compass and thrilling power, dark hair, and 
blue eyes. Edwin's resemblance to him is chiefly obvious in the 
shape of the head and face, the arch and twist of the heavy eye- 



Edivin Booth. 121 

brows, the radiant and constantly shifting light of ex^iression 
which animates the countenance, the natural grace of carriage 
and the celerity of mcvement. Edwin's eyes are dark brown 
and seem to turn black in moments of excitement, and they are 
capable of conveying with electrical effect the most diverse 
meanings — the solemnity of lofty thought, the tenderness of 
affection, the piteousuess of forlorn sorrow, the awful sense of 
spiritual surroundings, the woful weariness of despair, the mock- 
ing glee of wicked sarcasm, the vindictive menace of sinister pur- 
pose, and the lightning glare of baleful wrath. In range of facial 
expressiveness his countenance is fully equal to what his father's 
was, and to all that tradition tells us of the countenance of Garrick. 

In the beo:iDnino: of his career as an actor, Edwin 
Booth assumed the characters of Sir Edward Mortimer, 
Sir Charles Overreach, and other tempestuous parts, 
in all of which he excelled. In the sminner of 1852 he 
went with his father to (yalifornia, from thence to the 
Sandwich Islands and Australia. He had four years 
of severe experience and hard discipline of labor, trial, 
sorrow and disappointment. But he was made of stuff 
too stern to yield to discouragement and disaster. The 
pure gold of the man shone the brighter for the fur- 
bishing of affliction and sore trial. The training of 
grief and suffering was a source of education and pol- 
ish, and the young tragedian returned to the East in 
1856 " no longer a novice," but an artistic actor of ex- 
perience and great vigor of soul. He made the tour of 
the South, and was hailed as a prodigy of skill and gen- 
ius in the principal towns and cities of the Union. In 
the summer of 1860 he crossed the Atlantic, and acted 
in London, Liverpool, and Manchester, returning to 
New York in 1862. The following year he assumed 
the management of the Winter Garden Theatre, and 
6 



122 Representative Men. 

continued its control until the building was destroyed 
bj fire in 1867. In 1869 he opened Booth's Theatre, 
which he managed until the spring of 1874. Since 
that time he has been acknowledged as a star upon the 
stage in many of the principal cities in the United States. 
In San Francisco the receipts exceeded $96,000 for eight 
weeks' acting. Here I may be permitted to say that 
performers on the boards, who draw their inspiration 
mainly from the bottle, are not now, as they were for- 
merly, the favorites of the public. They must have a 
loftier and purer spirit than they can find in their cups 
to win the reputation which buds and blossoms and 
bears the fruit of fame. The public may for a time 
bear with the antics of a man of genius who goes 
astray, but the confirmed sot will not suit the fastidious 
and exacting auditors of the present age, nor excuse 
him on the ground that he is Alci blades defacing the 
images of the gods. " Edwin Booth," says Mr. Winter, 
" who had inherited from his father the insanity of in- 
temperance, conquered that utterly many years ago, 
and nobly and grandly trod it beneath his feet, and as 
he matured in his career, through acting every kind of 
part, from a dandy negro up to Hamlet, he at last made 
choice of the characters that afford ample scope for his 
powers and his aspirations, and so settled upon a definite 
restricted repertory. His characters are Hamlet, Mac- 
beth, Lear, Othello, lago, Kichard the Second, Eich- 
ard the Third, Shylock, Cardinal Woolsey, Benedick, 
Petruchio, Eichelieu, Lucius, Brutus, Bertuccio, Kuy 
Bias, and Don Caesar de Bazan.'' 

Edwin Booth has been tried by some of the most terrible 



Edwin Booth. 123 

afflictions that ever tested the fortitude of a human soul. Over his 
youth — plainly visible — impended the lowering cloud of insanity. 
While he was yet a boy, and when literally struggling for life 
in the semi-barbarous wilds of old California, lie lost his beloved 
father, under circumstances of singular misery. In early man- 
hood he laid in her grave the woman of his first love — the wife 
who had died in absence from him, herself scarcely past the 
threshold of youth, lovely as an angel, and to all that knew her 
precious beyond expression. A little later his heart was well-nigh 
broken, and his life was well-nigh blasted by the crime of a lunatic 
brother, that for a moment seemed to darken the hope of the 
world. Recovering from this blow, he threw all his resources 
and powers into the establishment of the grand est.tlieatre in the 
metropolis of America, and he saw his fortune of more than a 
million dollars, together with the toil of some of the best years 
of his life, frittered away through the incompetence of other 
men. 

Under all these trials he has borne bravely up, and kept the 
even, steadfast tenor of his way, strong, patient, gentle, neither 
elated by public homage nor embittered by private grief Such 
a use of high powers in the dramatic art, and the development 
and maintenance of such a character behind them, well entitle 
him to the affection of his countrymen, proud equally of his 
goodness and his renown, and pleased that the old world has 
now laid her wreath of laurel on his name. W. Winter. 

Since the above was written and published, Edwin 
Booth has again met witli a great soitow, having lost 
his second wife, an amiable and accomplished lady of 
great attractiveness of person and loveliness of charac- 
ter. Strong men are not easily crushed by afflictions 
and misadventures. They rise superior to events that 
would be disastrous to ordinary actors on the stage of 
human experience. 

It is said by those who are competent to judge, that 
this prince of tragedy excels, not in elegant comedy, 



124 Representative Men. 

but in fierce sarcasm and " simulated madness." He 
has intense poetic sensibility, and being a " man of 
moods,*' like all men of real genius, lie is unequal in his 
efforts. Even when he seems to lack warmth and color, 
there is always artistic treatment and poetic expres- 
sion in his voice and manner. He studies, analyzes 
and masters every point in a play, before its presenta- 
tion on the stage. He is not satisfied until the spirit of 
Shakespeare gives life to his ideal. The mere memo- 
rizing of the words in a drama is but a small part in his 
preparation. The text in type is a mere body without 
tlie animating life. He does not rest until it contains a 
living soul, pulsing in the heart and throbbing in the 
brain. No detail of his study is neglected — historic 
accuracy is demanded, and the passion of the play is 
brought out as vividly as lightning from a thunder 
cloud. A glance at the portrait before me makes it 
plain and clear that the face and head represent a re- 
fined and cultivated man — one whose fine and delicate 
organization combines the tenderness of a woman with 
the majesty of " the true prince." The dark hair is 
brushed from a full forehead ; the heavy eyebrows 
give a background of shadow for the large brown eyes 
to flash under in the tempest of emotion ; the sensitive 
nostril ; the thin, compressed lip ; the chin, indicative of 
unyielding will ; and the compact, wiry figure — show 
just such a man as nature would mould to interpret in 
the best way the best work of the greatest dramatic 
poet. No man unendowed with imagination and po- 
etic sensibility can properly translate the thought and 
feeling of a man of genius. He must be formed of the 
finest clay, moistened with tears and tempered with 



Edwin Booth. 125 

smiles, to be a fit delineator of the eliaracters created 
bj the true poet. He must be transparent in his earnest 
endeavor, so that the figure photographed on his heart 
shall be seen in his face and heard in his voice. He must 
forget himself and become the embodiment and spirit 
of the subject he represents. 

In Hamlet the actor must give soul and substance 
to shadows. The character is one of the great cre- 
ations of the poet, so fine and flexible that the out- 
bursts of passion are as natural as the sound of storms 
upon the air, and " of all others of Shakespeare's char- 
acters the most difiicult to personate on the stage." 
It is an expression of passion, thought and feeling put 
into speech, that palpitates, and bleeds if handled rude- 
ly. The prince does not rise in white and pass away 
in a cloud like a spirit. He is human — real flesh and 
blood, and thinks and talks like a philosopher in his 
senses, and, when overwhelmed with emotion, his heart 
beats in his bosom " even as a madman beats upon a 
drum." 



Elihu Burritt, 

THE LEARNED BLACKSMITH, 



" If hence thy silence be, 

As 'tis too just a cause, 
Let this thouglit quicken thee, 
Minds that are great and free, 

Should not on fortune pause. 
'Tis crown enough to virtue still, 

To be her own apiDlause." — Ben Jonson. 

IN the summer of 1838, Governor Everett, the pol- 
ished scholar, statesman and orator, in an address to 
an association of mechanics in Boston, took occasion to 
mention, that a blacksmith of that State had, bj his un- 
aided industry, made himself acquainted with fifty 
languages. Prior to this statement Mr. Burritt had 
lived in obscurity, and the fame of his acquirements 
did not extend beyond the smoke of his own work-sho}3. 
When told what the distinguished lecturer had reported 
in relation to his wonderful attainments, he modestly 
said that the Governor had done him more than justice. 
It was true, he said, that he could read about fifty lan- 
guages, but he had not studied them all critically. 
Yankee curiosity had led him to look at the Latin gram- 
mar; he became interested in it, and persevered and 
finally acquired a pretty thorough knowledge of that 
language. He then studied the Greek with equal care. 
An acquaintance with these languages had enabled him 
(126) 




PLATE XIII. 



Elihii Biirritt, \2f 

to read, with considerable facility, the Italian, French, 
Spanish and Portuguese. The Russian, to which he 
was devoting his odd moments, he said was the most 
dilSicult of any he had undertaken. He went to Wor- 
cester to secure the advantages of an antiquarian library, 
to which the trustees allowed him free access. He 
spent eight hours at the forge, eight hours in the library 
and the remaining eight hours of eacjh day in recreation 
and rest. After he had studied Hebrew and made him- 
self acquainted with its cognate languages, the Syriac, 
Chaldaic, Arabic, Ethiopic, etc., he turned his attention 
to the languages of Europe and studied French, Span- 
ish, Italian and German under native teachers. He 
then pursued the Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, IN'orwe- 
gian, Icelandic, Welsh, Gaelic, Celtic, etc. 

This remarkable man, who was a living, speaking 
polyglott, was also an excellent mathematician. Fig- 
ures tumbled from his pencil like seeds from a sack. 
He commanded a graphic pen, and some of his essays 
and sketches are classed with the best efforts in the lan- 
guage. He was also a good Samaritan, a philanthro- 
pist and reformer, with a soft heart in his bosom. Be- 
lieving that God made of one blood all the nations of 
the earth, he aimed to unite them by the fraternal links 
of brotherhood. He looked upon war as an inexcusa- 
ble evil, and labored manfully for its extinction. He 
would dismantle the arsenal, disband the army, spike 
the cannon and reforge the sword and cutlass, turning 
them into agricultural implements. He would take our 
ships of war and lade them to the water's edge with 
food and clothing for the poor. He said, " The ballast 
should be round clams, or the real quahaugs, heavy as 



128 Representative Men. 

cast-iron and capital for roasting. Then he would 
build along up, "filling every square inch with well- 
cured provisions. He would have a hogshead of bacon 
mounted into every porthole, each of which should dis- 
charge fifty hams a minute when the ship was brought 
into action, and the state-rooms should be filled with 
well-made garments, and the taut cordage and the long, 
tapering spires should be festooned with boys' jackets 
and trowsers. Then, when there should be no more 
room for another codfish or herring or sprig of catnip, he 
would run up the white flag of peace. He would throw 
as many hams into a famine-stricken city in twenty-four 
hours as there were bomb-shells and cannon-balls thrown 
into Keil by the besieging armies ; he would barricade 
the low, narrow streets with loaves of broad, would throw 
up a breastwork clear around the market-place of bar- 
rels of flour, pork and beef, and in the middle raise 
a stack of salmon and codfish as large as a Methodist 
meeting-house, with a steeple to it, and the bell should 
ring to all the city bells, and the city bells should ring 
to all the people to come to market and buy provisions 
w^ithout money and without price. And white flags 
should everywhere wave in the breeze on the vanes of 
steeples, on mastheads, on flag-stones along the embat- 
tled walls, on the ends of willow sticks borne by romp- 
ing, laughing, trooping children. All the blood-colored 
drapery of war should bow and blush before the stainless 
standard of peace." 

The writer saw this ^' learned blacksmith " for the 
first time at a public meeting, and heard him deliver 
an address. He sat on the first seat opposite the pul- 
pit, with his back to the audience. Thomas Drew, then 



Elihu Burr it t. 129 

known as Burritt's blower and striker, was taking notes 
in a side pew near by. When called up, the black- 
smith arose qnietly and modestly responded. He stood 
on the top stair of the pulpit, and at first seemed to. 
shrink from the public stare. At that time he was in 
the prime of manhood, tall and lithe, but with the lit- 
erary stoop of the shoulders. Premature baldness was 
his excuse for wearing a wig. He had a high forehead, 
and the large development (so phrenologists say) of the 
perceptive faculties made it appear to retreat. 

He had blue eyes and an uneven, unhandsome face 
marked with the lines of thought and culture. He 
wore the look of perseverance, endurance, thoughtful- 
ness, blended with anxiety, confidence and hope. He 
spoke slowly, distinctly and forcibly, without ever ut- 
tering a foolish thing. He had a peculiarity of tone, 
which was unreportable, but which told with thrilling 
efii'ect on the hearts of his hearers when he entered 
earnestly into the subject he discussed. All who have 
ever heard him will acknowledge that his matter was 
filled with thought. His facts and statistics had varied 
beauty, when viewed through the prism of his glowing 
fancy. For samples of his style the reader is referred 
to " Sparks from the Anvil," and other works from his 
pen. 

In a London edition of " Sparks from the Anvil " 
may be found the following sketch of a distinguished 
statesman who had been snatched as a brand from the 
liquid burning : 

And he was found with all the resuscitated vigor of his talents, 
exhuming, as it were, his fellow beings, who like him had been 
buried before they were dead. Massachusetts welcomed him 
6* 



130 Rcprese7itative Men, 

back to her embrace with emotions of maternal joy, and invited 
the returning Pleiad to resume his rank among the stars of her 
crown. The doors of her halls and churches were thrown open 
to the newly returning prodigal, and many were touched to life 
and salvation at the burning eloquence which fell from his lips. 
Sister States heard of this new Luther in Temperance, and he 
obeyed their call. He stood up in their cities like Paul in the 
midst of Mars Hill, and, with an eloquence approaching inspira- 
tion, set forth the strange doctrine of total abstinence. That man, 
unfortunately, was led astray by fiends in human form, but a 
band of Washingtonians persuaded him to sign the pledge once 
more, and this time it was an unviolated policy of Insurance 
against the fires of destruction. 

He concluded that graphic sketch in the following 
words : 

That man is again a giant, and he is abroad; look out for 
him! Like Samson, he is feeling for the pillars of the temple 
of Bacchus, and he will, ere long, revenge the loss of his locks 
by a mighty overthrow of that doomed edifice. 

See this scholar, writer, and speaker, clad in his 
working garb, wearing his paper cap and leather apron. 
The forge burns, the anvil rings, and he is 

STRIKINa FOR WAGES. 

He is a blacksmith, jDroud of his lot; 
He strikes hard when the iron is hot. 

The red sparks glow, like fire-fiies winging, 
" Ten pound ten " can never be got. 
Unless he keeps the anvil ringing. 
Strike again ! 
" Ten pound ten ! " 

Working well with an iron will, 
He can always foot the grocer's bill. 



EliJm Burritt. 131 

Good luck from every blow npspringiDg — 
That's the way the pockets fill, 

Money clinks to the anvil's ringing. 
Strike again ! 
" Ten pound ten ! " 

He strikes for wages, and he gets 
Money enough to pay his debts. 

And more, for he keeps the hammer swinging. 
Pride and poverty spread their nets 
In vain for him whose anvil's ringing. 
Strike ngain ! 
" Ten pound ten ! " 

His anvil chorus every day 
Awakes the sleepers over the way ; 
And they hear him merrily singing, 
"There's time to work and there's time to play, 
Now is the time for anvil ringing." 
Strike again ! 
" Ten pound ten ! " 

Amid a shower of sparks he stands, 
With ojDen face and honest hands, 

AVhere the wasp of want can not come stinging. 
The house he built is not on sands, 
It is as firm as the anvil ringing. 

Strike again ! 
" Ten i3ound ten ! " 

When he grows old, and bent, and gray ; 
And long before, let him rest and play. 

In golden years, sweet pleasure bringing. 
And hear his great grandchildren say, 
" There is music in the anvil's ringing. 
Strike again ! 
" Ten pound ten ! " 

[When I wrote the last stanza, I had forgotten that 
Bnrritt was a bachelor.] 



132 Representative Men. 

Our Blacksmith struck for something higher and of 
more* worth than wages. His forge blazed up with 
light for the world of letters and reform. The blows 
he struck hit the hydra head of selfishness and tyr- 
anny — Bacchus and Mars staggered under the force of 
his blows. The music of his anvil has been heard in 
all civilized lands, and it will echo through the ages. 
He helped to shiver the yokes and chains from the 
necks and limbs of slaves. He struck at oppression, at 
intemperance, at war, at vice and crime, in all their 
phases. 

Elihu Burritt was' the son of a shoemaker, tlie 
youngest of ten children. He was born in New Britain, 
Connecticut, on the 8th of December, 1810. The 
parents of this distinguished man were a pious and 
amiable couple. When about sixteen years of age, 
Elihu was apprenticed to a blacksmith and made his 
home with his brother Elijah, an educated man, who 
had been driven from Georgia because of his anti- 
slavery proclivities. At one and twenty, when Elihu's 
apprenticeship expired, he became a student with his 
brother, who was the village school-master. At the 
close of the term he returned to the shop, determined 
to make up the time he had lost, which he attempted 
to do by performing the work of two men and getting 
double pay. In 1841 Burritt made his first appearance 
as a public lecturer, and about that time, or shortly 
after, he established a weekly paper entitled " The 
Christian Oitizenr It was a very attractive, instruct- 
ive, and able paper. In its columns were articles 
of great value, and some of them have found their way 
into volumes of choice selections. In 1846 he made 



Elihit Burr it t. 133 

bis first visit to England, where lie published " Sparks 
from the Anvil." During the potato famine in Ireland, 
bis appeals to his fellow-countrymen for aid met with 
generous responses. In 1863 Mr. Burritt made a 
second visit to England, and during the summer season 
be walked from London to John O'Groat's, and after- 
ward gave an account of his journey in a fascinating 
book. 

Two years later, President Lincoln appointed him to 
the ofiice of U. S. Consul at Birmingham, and for Hvq 
years he filled the position with honor to his country 
and credit to himself. His leisure was filled with 
literary labor and occasional speech-making in favor of 
temperance, peace, international arbitration, co-operative 
employment, cheap postage, etc. He was an emphatic 
and enthusiastic advocate of peace, writing essays 
and delivering addresses, and doing all that be could to 
help the cause along. In 18T0 he returned to bis 
native town, where be died on the 8th of March, 1879. 
In the words of Mr. Frederick Sherlock, in bis beauti- 
ful book entitled " Illustrious Abstainers," "He left to 
bis country the sweet fragrance of a name which will 
be ever honored as amongst the noblest of the age in 
which he lived, and bequeathed to the world a glorious 
example of self-culture, which, we doubt not, will be 
potential for good through all time." 

What a lesson is here in the life of this good man. 
The son of a poor shoemaker ; a blacksmith's appren- 
tice, and student ; a journeyman, mastering many lan- 
guages ; a lecturer, editor and author ; an iconoclast re- 
former, swinging bis battle-axe with more force than be 
did the hammer; a representative man at home and 



134 Representative Men. 

abroad, admired and honored, for his learning and cult- 
nre, and for his great abihty. Above and bejond all 
this, he was a modest, Christian gentleman, seeking in 
every way to proclaim the gospel of '' peace on earth 
and good-will to men/' 

A characteristic sketch of him was written by Profes- 
sor L. IS". Fowler, a few years ago, some extracts from 
which can not but prove interesting to the reader : 

Some meu are not so great in their own estimation as they are 
in th:it of others. AY hat they have done lias been the resnlt of 
such a gradual preparation, that they are not conscious of their 
own power, and their deeds have been so long before the world 
that they have become household names. Some never blow 
their own trumpet, but keep themselves quite behind the curtain, 
and present their cause in a modest, yet earnest manner. Such 
generally succeed in their undertaking^^, and eventually secure 
lasting fame if their cause is a worthy one. Those who talk 
about themselves more than about their cause are sure to fail, 
and they merit the contempt they have earned. It is easy to be 
courageous when there is no danger, but cowardly in times of 
grcat difficulty. Some si3end their time in boasting in a pomp- 
ous manner w^hat they Intend to do, but never commence the 
task while others do the work, and let it speak for itself 

Elihu Burritt is certainly one of the most modest of men I ever 
knew, and yet he has done an immense amount of good in the 
world, and has always been actively employed for the benefit of 
others. He descended from a studious family, all the members 
of which had a literal thirst for positive knowledge, and many of 
them have excelled in their knowledge of astronomy, geography, 
mathematics, and literature, and have devoted themselves to 
study so far as they have had the means. 

He was poor from his birth, and had to struggle hard to gain 
any kind of position. He was obliged to learn a trade to sup- 
port himself, and he chose that of a blacksmith, as being the 
most suitable to enable him to develop his mechanical genius. 



Rlihii Biirritt. 1 35 

His thirst for knowledge was innate, and he worked hard during 
the day and studied nearly all the night, until his health suffered, 
and he was obliged to discontinue both for a time. Xothing but 
poverty prevented him from going abroad for the purpose of 
devoting himself entirely to the study of mathematics and the 
foreign languages. 

Fortunately he went to Worcester, Mass., and there found an 
opportunity to improve himself every way. He obtained a bet- 
ter situation as a laborer, and as soon as his literary tastes were 
known, he had the great privilege of consulting the excellent 
library in the town, and there read books on science, literature, 
and the languages, that it would have been quite impossible for 
him to purchase. In order to make the most of his time he 
mapped out the day, allowing so many hours to work, and so 
many minutes to each of the various studies he was pursuing. 
In that way not a minute was lost. He soon became famous for 
his knowledge, and attracted much attention. About this time 
he allowed me to take a cast of his head, and I began to study the 
developments of his brain, in order to account for his singular 
proclivities. His head indicates very prominent tendencies of 
mind. The frontal lobe is long and strongly marked. The 
reasoning faculties are full, but the organ of Comparison and all 
the perceptive faculties are very large — in fact, they are devel- 
oped almost to a deformity. Their special manifestation has 
been to give a desire to gain positive knowledge, to study math- 
ematics, metaphysics, philology, the exact sciences, and all truths 
that can be demonstrated. 

I asked liim one day how many dialects and languages he 
could read. He replied. " Fifty-two, and I have a partial knowl- 
edge of several others; yet, of the two, I am more fond of math- 
ematics.'' He has more talent to learn mathematics than the lan- 
guages, but his very active Comparison has led him to compare one 
language with another and another, till he has become a walking 
vocabulary, and has fairly earned the title he received long ago 
— that of " the learned blacksmith.*' His leading intellectual 
faculty is Individuality. This gives him great power of obser- 
vation, and the desire to acquire all kinds of practical knowl- 
edge from the outside world. 



R. H. Stoddard,* 

POET, JOURNALIST AND CRITIC 



"Who made 
His music heard below, 
Dan Chaucer, the first warbler whose sweet breath, 

Preluded those melodious bursts that fill 
The spacious times of great Elizabeth 
With sounds that echo still." —Tennyson. 

RICHAED H. STODDARD, poet, journalist and 
critic, is not one of the spoiled children of fortune 
and tender training, bnt a brave, independent toiler and 
thinker, endowed with intellectual strength and vigor, 
toned with natural and acquired taste and delicacy. 
By hard and continuous work he has won the laurel 
wreath of true honor, but he does not forget that he is 
a man, nor does he sacrifice his sympathies on the 
altar of pride and conceit. Indeed, few have done 
more disinterested work to aid men of talent and genius, 
and lift them from obscurity in the commencement of 
their career. 

If I read him aright, he does not waste time thinking 
about himself and the fame that may follow or vanish 
in the path of duty. He gets up the heights of Parnas- 
sus by giving loose rein to Pegasus, untroubled with 
suggestions of dangers and difficulties in the steep and 
narrow way. He is fond of the habits, manners and 
sentiments of the " golden age " of letters, and prefers 

* Portrait from R. H. Stoddard's Poems. Chas. Scribner's Sous, N. Y. 
(136) 




K. II. STODDAED. 



PLATE XIV. 



J^. H. Stoddard. 1 37 

the style and spirit of the Elizabethan time to the 
fashion and taste of the modern writers of verse. 

There is nothing of the epileptic, terrific or super- 
natural in his style. He picks np the common events 
of every-day life, incidents that interest the reader be- 
cause they are familiar. He does not ignore common 
sense to create a startling sensation. Naturally con- 
servative, he is not enthusiastic in his advocacy of meas- 
ures of moral or political reform, and will go out of 
his way to spurn shams and frauds, whatever aliases 
they may assume. 

And yet he is at his best when moved to write out 
his thoughts and feelings in relation to the tragedy and 
comedy of human life. Without courting the applause 
of the multitude, or fearing its criticism, he not unfre- 
quently strikes out right and left at the vices and fol- 
lies of mankind, hitting hard in prose and verse. His 
work in newspapers, magazines and books is before the 
reading public, and is known wherever the language in 
which he writes is read, and it speaks for itself, and I 
confidently refer to his poems as vouchers for the accura- 
cy of my opinion. 1 am sure the critic will not go far 
before he will find felicitous lines that sparkle " like salt 
in fire," and touch that chord with what is written 
within " the red-leaved tables of our hearts." To him, 
nature is an open book, and he is one of its happiest 
translators. Green fields dotted with dandelions, wild 
birds charming the air with songs, stooping skies blos- 
soming with stars, rivers pulsing to the ocean, mount- 
ains lifting their heads to the clouds, storms of wind, 
rain, hail and snow, suggest topics to him and fire him 
with inspiration. 



138 ■ Representative Men. 

Men and women whose opinions are authoritative, do 
not hesitate to say, that, since the death of Longfellow, 
he is not second to any living poet in America. In- 
deed, he differs so widely from all our popular writers 
of verse, that we notice most the dissimilarities. 

Holmes is a humorist and wit, but his ''fan" does 
not " secrete tears," and lack of pathos prevents his 
rising to the loftiest latitude of genius. Lowell comes 
nearer to the level of true greatness, for he adds to 
the comic qualities of his verse tenderness and poetic 
insight. Whittier towers in the front of progress and 
reform, and occupies a position untouched by any other 
man of genius. In Stoddard's writings we find the 
old-wine flavor of grapes gathered long ago. I say this, 
without impeaching his integrity as an original writer. 
The sweetness and purity of his verse were noticed in 
his flrst effusions, when he was a contributor to the 
Knickerbocker and Union Magazine. 

Some of these efforts, with others, afterward ap- 
peared in a little volume entitled '• Foot-Prints." The 
book was well received, and Griswold, in his " Poets 
and Poetry of America," says : " Perhaps the most in- 
dividual trait displayed in its pages is a capacity for fln- 
ished and picturesque description. His landscapes have 
a sharp and distinct outline, in which none of the 
minor features are omitted ; a keen perception of form, 
in striking contrast to the more glowing coloring and 
careless outline of young writers in general." Mr. 
Stoddard was only twenty-one years of age at the time 
of the publication of this book. The famous critic 
continues : '' Mr. Stoddard's best poems give evidence 
of growing power and a capacity of attaining high ex- 



R. H. Stoddard. 139 

cellence in a school of poetry of which we have few 
modern specimens. The poem of ' Leonatus,' in its 
daintiness of metre and language, reminds one of the 
old English song-writers." Here is a sample of it : 

Tlie fair boy Leonatus, 
The page of Imogen. 

It was his duty evermore 
To tend the Lady Imogen. 
By peep of day he might be seen 

Tapj)ing against her chamber door 
To wake the sleepy waiting-maid, 
Who rose, and when she had arrayed 
The Princess, and the twain had prayed 

(With pearled rosaries used of yore), 
They called him pacing to and fro, 
And cap in hand and bowing low 
He entered and began to feed 
The singing birds with fruit and seed. 

The brave boy Leonatus, 
The page of Imogen, 
He tripped along the kingly hall, 

From room to room with messages. 

He stopped the butler, clutched his keys 
(Albeit he was broad and tall), 

And dragged him down the vaults where wine 

In bins lay beaded and divine. 

To pick a flask of vintage fine. 
Came up and climbed the garden wall, 

And plucked from out the sunny spots 

Peaches and luscious apricots, 

And filled his golden salver there, 

And hurried to his lady fair. 

The following spirited poem was read at the Wood- 
stock, Ct., Celebration, July 4, 1882. If not one of the 



140 Representative Men. 

author's best, it is one of his latest productions, and 
ranks with the finest efforts of its kind. It is a ring- 
ing, patriotic poem, and will find its way to the En- 
glish-reading public in both hemispheres, and will long 
be held in remembrance. There seems to be too much 
electric life in it to have been the product of a financial 
contract ; but here it is, and since that grand critic, the 
public, have decided in its favor, I shall make no further 
comments : 

Beneath the blue arch of this perfect sky, 
We gather on the Nation's Holiday, 
And while the rosy hours are going by, 
We ponder what they bring and take away ; 
Mirth, music and the little ones that play 
Upon the dappled shadows of the trees. 
Laugh on, light hearts ! But we, whose heads are gray. 
Though we may smile, have graver memories 
Than can have crossed your minds in these bright days of Peace. 

Out of the travail of two hundred years 
Rose this our Commonweal. Its growth was slow ; 
Our fathers sowed the seed with hopes and fears. 
And poured out their best blood to make it grow. 
Beset with peril from the savage foe, 
They went about their work prepared to die; 
For where the peril was they could not know 
Until its arrows hurtled suddenly by, 
Or the smoke of their burning homes went darkly up the sky 1 

The punishment they meted out was stern ; 

The sight of women and of children slain. 

The thought of captives that would not return. 

Hardened their breaking hearts to slay again. 

One text the tenderest never read in vain : 

" Vengeance is mine ! " Another they read less : 

"Father, forgive them ! " But one thing was plain — 



R. H. Stoddard. \^\ 

That God was with them in their sore distress, 
And answered their strong prayers in the vast wilderness. 

rhey builded churches where to-day they stand ; 
Rude meeting-houses rose up everywhere, 
For all the people lent a helping hand. 
And when the Sabbath bell summoned to prayer. 
The worldliest put away their week-day care. 
And flocked from miles around to hear the Word. 
And hither came a man with snowy hair, 
Whose piteous heart was for the Indians stirred. 
He preached, and they believed the holy things they heard. 

And hither, when the storm of war had burst 
^ Between the Mother Country and, her sons. 
Comes he whom History proclaims the first 
In war and peace ; the fiery rumor runs, 
The farmers quit their ploughs, and snatch their guns, 
To follow him through victory and defeat; 
The red-coat rabble, led by titled ones, 
Goes down before them like the swaths of wheat. 
Fierce is the summer sun, and sharp the winter's sleet ! 

These were the men— not men, but higher Powers— 
Whose hardy sinews stiflTening into steel. 
Grappling with the Old World, made the New World ours 
The sure foundation of the Commonweal ! 
When we forget them, when we cease to feel 
Their greatness and their glory, we are lost. 
Silence the bells ! Or ring a funeral peal — 
We are no longer worth the blood we cost ; 
Better our fathers had sunk in the wild waves they crossed ! 

Voices like these upon this peaceful day 
Come like an echo from the troubled Past; 
And other voices, not so far away, 
And other eyes upon the Future cast. 
Command us to bu watchful, and hold fast 



142 Representative Men. 

The ancient freedom of our winds and waves, 
And of our fathers' spirits; lest, at last, 
We heap dishonor on our fathers' graves, 
And curse our children with the heritage of slaves ! 
New York City, June 27, 1882. 

The neatlj engraved portrait of Mr. Stoddard, wliicii 
accompanies his elegant and beantifnl book of poems, 
published by Charles Scribner's Sons, is before me. 
The abundant growth of hair indicates great vitality, 
and, although the snow that never thaws has fallen upon 
his head and beard, he does not look like a man ad- 
vanced in years ; he is only lif ty-seven, and that is the 
prime of life in a poet's age. His dark eyes are full of lire, 
and it would be hard to provoke anger in the soul that 
lights them. His features show force, strength, earnest- 
ness, independence and sincerity. He represents a 
type of manhood that can not be put down by untoward 
events, and, like Napoleon, he ascends the opposing hills 
of difficulty in the face and teeth of hindering storms. 
He stai'ted in life with an object in view ; a determi- 
nation to write something that would entitle him to a 
seat in the academy of the immortals. Although fond of 
fame, he was resolved to deserve it, and not to look for 
laurels until he had fairly earned them. As a critic 
and book-reviewer, he has made enemies who watch 
for chances to feed their petty revenges ; but an army of 
.disaffected and disappointed authors can not subdue the 
untamable spirit of such a man. His fame as a 
master of pure English in poetry and in prose is so 
well established that, it can not be shaken by adverse 
criticism. 

Here are some selections made by my friend and 



A\ //. Stoddard. 



143 



Mr. Stoddard's friend, Mr. Abram Lent Smith, a young 
author who is deservedly rising into notice as a writer. 
I copy them without comment. 



TRIUMPHANT MUSIC. 

Ay, give me muidc ! Flood the air with sound ! 

But let it be superb, and brave, and high, 
Not such as leaves my wild aml)ition bound 

In soft delights, but lifts it to the sky. 
Ko sighs, nor tears, but deep, indignant calm. 

And scorn of all but strength, my only need ; 

From whence but music should my strength proceed ? 
From some titanic psalm ? 

Some thunderous strand of sound, which in its roll 

Shall lift to starry heights my fiery soul ! 



Along the grassy slope I sit, 

And dream of other years : 
My heart is full of soft regrets, 

My eyes of tender tears. 

The wild bees hummed about the spot, 

The sheep-bells tinkled far. 
Last year when Alice sat with me, 

Beneath the evening star. 

The same sweet star is o'er me now, 
Around the same soft hours; 

But Alice moulders in the dust 
With all the last year's flowers. 

I sit alone, and only hear 
The wild bees on the steep, 

And distant bells that seem to float 
From,out the folds of sleep. 



144 Representative Men. 



THE FLIGHT OF YOUTH. 

There are gains for all our losses, 

There are balms for all our pain : 
But when youth, the dream departs, 
It takes something from our hearts, 
And it never comes again. 

We are stronger, and are better, 

Under manhood's sterner reign •. 
Still we feel that something sweet 
Followed youth with flying feet. 
And will never come again. 

Something beautiful is vanished, 

And we sigh for it in vain : 
We behold it everywhere, 
On the earth, and in the air, 
But it never comes again. 



THE SEA. 
{Storm.) 

Through the night, through the night 

In the saddest unrest, 
Wrapt in white, all in white, 

With her babe on her breast, 
Walks the mother so pale, 
Staring out on the gale, 
Through the night. 

Through the night, through the night. 
Where the sea lifts the wreck, 

Land in sight, close in sight. 
On the surf-flooded deck, 

Stands the father so brave, 

Driving on to his grave. 
Through the night. 



R. H, Stoddard. 145 

The sky is a drinking cup, 

That Avas overturned of old, 
And it pours in tlie eyes of men 

Its wine of airy gold. 

We drink that wine all day, 

Till the last drop is drained up, 
And are lighted off to bed 

By the jewels in the cup. 



Many's the time I've sighed for summer, 
Many's the summer I've known ; 
But to-day I cling to the flying spring, 
And fear to have it flown. 
Not that May is gay, 
For the sky is cold and gray. 
And a shadow creeps on the day : 
But the leaden summer will give me 

What it never gave before. 
Or take from me what a thousand 
Summers can give no more. 



Joy may be a miser. 

But sorrow's purse is free. 
I had two griefs already, 

He gave two more to me. 
He filled my eyes with water, 

He filled my heart with pain ; 
And then, the liberal fellow, 

He promised to again. 



ODE. 

Pale in her fading bowers the summer stands, 
Like a new Niobe with clasped hands, 
Silent above the flowers, her children lost, 
Slain by the arrows of the early frost. 

7 



146 Representative Men. 

The clouded Heaven above is pale and gray, 
The misty earth below is wan and drear, 

The baying winds cbase all the leaves away, 
As cruel hounds pursue the trembling deer; 

It is a solemn time, the Sunset of the Year. 

The rest of this ode is magnificent ! 




EASTMAN JOHNSON. 



PLATE XV. 



Eastman Johnson, 

REPRESENTATIVE ARTIST. 



HAZLITT was a painter before he became a writer, 
an artist before he was an author. He used 
colors on canvas first, and his artistic skill as a critic 
afterward. When he saw a picture he recognized its 
beauties, and if it had defects he saw them also. Pig- 
ments were not intended to conceal the mistakes of the 
pencil, but to bring out the nice and, if possible, the 
exact, resemblance of nature ; and this prince of essay- 
ists acknowledged in his " Table Talk " that with him the 
pleasure of painting far exceeded that of authorship. In 
the transfer of thought and feeling in colors to the can- 
vas, the artist sits opposite to nature, and, in calm pa- 
tience, he copies the original, which came from the 
hand of the Great Master. " He thinks God's thought 
after Him." Light and shade are the wings of his 
guiding angel. Shadows of the fancy become substance 
mider the movements of the brush. That which was a 
dream of beauty grows into a reality to the sight and 
to the touch. The prose of a mechanical outline be- 
comes a poem in paint. The born artist has the exquis- 
ite pleasure of seeing a new creation coming forth at 
his command. The grass dotted with daisies and dan- 
delions expands into a meadow with fleecy flocks and 
cattle, "forty feeding like one." Trees with roots 
clasping the earth, while their trunks tower to the 

(H7) 



14S Representative Men. 

clouds and throw out branches, little juvenile trees 
in the arms of their parents; adult and baby trees 
that seem to clap their green palms in an imagin- 
ary atmosphere ; the delicate tints of flowers ; the 
varied hues of appetizing fruits — all are brought 
out in their wealth and splendor by the skill and 
genius of the colorist. His power is not like Milton's 
lion, held to the ground while pawing to get free. 
It is unencumbered and exultant in its freedom. The 
clouds obey his behest, and sail in fleets before the 
wdnd, or, like vast forts near the sky, veil the artillery 
of the storm that shakes the rocks y^\\X\ thunder. 
Or he gives us a shower of rain and gleams of sun- 
shine, with a bow of glory spanning the heavens— a 
bridge of beauty fit for the spirits of the departed to 
ascend upon to the gates of the celestial city. He 
may use his skill in dej^icting the sea in calm or in 
storm, as a mighty force against which the hand of man 
is powerless, or as a ferry of commerce, bearing great 
ships from port to port around the round world. Again 
Hazlitt says, " The most sensible men I know are paint- 
ers — that is, they are the most lively observers of what 
passes in the world about them, and the closest observ- 
ers of what passes in their own minds." The writer 
is not an artist connoisseur nor critic, but he will ven- 
ture to say there is no department of the " art beauti- 
ful " superior to that of portrait painting. A genu hie 
master breathes a living soul into his colors, and the 
canvas palpitates with life. He shows the faculties, at- 
tributes, appetites and passions of the prototype in the 
type taken from his easel. At the suggestion and 
under the direction of his brain and heart, his t.iste 
and genius, his judgment and skill, his labor is so 



Eastman JoJinson. 149 

" — distinctly wrought, 
That you might ahnost say liis picture thought." 

There seems to be a similarity in the gifts and 
graces distributed to painters and poets. They are 
endowed with taste, fancy and imagination. They 
have an unquenchable desire to embody their ideas, 
with the pen or tlie pencil, on paper or on canvas. 
Now and then we find, as we do in the work of Ros- 
setti in England and Buchanan Head in America, art- 
ist and author combined in one person. Michael Angelo 
and Leonardo da Vinci were painters, sculptors, philos- 
ophers and poets. Durer, Cellini, Northcote, Rey- 
nolds and Haydon were literary men. Ernest Longfel- 
low, son of the poet, is a painter. I have the impres- 
sion that Browning has a son who paints. The late 
Governor Dix, who was a literary man of poetic tastes, 
had a son who was an artist. R. H. Stoddard has a son 
of artistic taste and skill. The intellectual and moral 
qualities of a true poet are sure to be found in a gen- 
uine artist. 

In Tuckerman's " Book of the Artist" I find the fol- 
lowing sketch of Eastman Johnson, who is entitled to 
a place in my gallery as a representative painter. I 
wish I could put him in a more artistic frame and in 
better light. " He was born in the little town of Lovell, 
near Freyberg, in the State of Maine. His father long 
held, with eminent credit, a responsible ofiice in the 
United States Treasury Department. His artist son 
was first known to fame as a crayon limner, wherein 
his skill in catching a likeness and the grace and vigor 
of his drawing rendered him popular and prosperous, 
so that in a few years he was enabled to visit Europe, 



150 Representative Men, 

where he commenced an earnest system of 'study, and 
began to practise in oil. He remained two years at 
Dusseldorf, and although greater facility and accuracy 
in drawing were thus acquired, he did not learn much 
which promoted his special artistic development, and 
therefore started with alacrity for Italy, by the way of 
Paris and Holland, visiting the best galleries and stu- 
dios. At The Hague he fell in with Mignot, and tar- 
ried ostensibly to copy a remarkable picture in the 
royal collection. Intending to remain but a few weeks, 
his sojourn lasted four years, for then and there he 
struck upon a congenial vein of work, found unexpect- 
ed opportunities for study, and met with flattering suc- 
cess in portraiture. He executed at The Hague his first 
original and elaborate work in oil. It was to him a 
labor of love, and he gave to it the time and the care 
which the genuine artist delights in bestowing upon 
what he feels to be his appropriate task." It was the 
picture of a boy with dark eyes and hair and olive com- 
plexion, in the rude dress of a peasant. 

Success encouraged him to paint others, which were 
sent to his home in the United States, where they 
found ready and liberal purchasers. He also executed 
in oil and colored crayons, portraits for the court, and 
many of the leading families at The Hague, receiving 
generous prices for his work. On his return to this 
country, he turned his attention to native subjects, and 
no one has surpassed him in delineating the Indian 
and the negro. Among his best works are " The Old 
Kentucky Home," " The Drummer Boy," " The Pen- 
sion Claim Agent," " Sunday Morning," " Cossette," 
" Mount Yernon Kitchen," " The Albino Girl," " The 



Eastman Johnson. 151 

Corn Sheller," '^A Drop on the Sly," ^'JSfot enough for 
Two," ''Getting Warm," '' The Little Storekeeper," 
" The Young Letter-Writer," " The Musicians," " The 
Chimney Sweep," ''The Chimney Corner," "The I^ew 
England Boy at Breakfast," " The Post Boy," '' Lady at 
Prayer," " Hard Cider," " The Woodsman," and " The 
Organ Boy." These pictures are distributed among 
the wealthy lovers of the best artistic work. East- 
man Johnson has achieved success and fame, espe- 
cially as the delineator of the negro's features and 
character. The crisp hair that seems to entangle the 
thought under it ; the thick lips, over which the idea 
stumbles in speech ; the white teeth, uncovered by broad 
humor ; the ebony skin, clear enough for the soul to 
shine dimly through it as a star struggles through a 
cloud at night, are visible in his portraiture of the 
negro. In all his pictures he displays the skill of 
creative genius. The canvas under his manipulation 
is endowed with life, the heart beats, the blood flows, 
the brain thinks, the bosom palpitates, the face mirrors 
the mind, and is sad or happy, pleased or angry, in ac- 
cordance with his will. He is a master in his best 
efforts at giving life-like expression. If some of his 
figures should step out of their gilded frames and 
speak to us, it would hardly surprise the beholder — in- 
deed, it is what in a moment of forgetf ulness, one might 
look for with ecstatic expectation. 

Mr. Johnson was first prompted to try his skill, by 
seeing the crayon drawings executed by Seth Cheney, 
which were at the time among the best things done in 
art in this country. At that time he had no teacher, 
but drew directlv from nature. In 1849, when he was 



152 Representative Men. 

twenty-live years old, he went to Europe, where he was 
constantly and snecessfLilly employed. Before crossing 
the sea, he had not painted in oil anything worthy of 
particular notice. He entered, immediately after his 
arrival in Dusseldorf, tlie Prussian Hoyal Academy. 
As before stated, he remained there two years; then 
he went to The Hague, where he remained four years. 
His first pictures that attracted attention were the 
'' Peasant Boy " and the '' Card Players." At The 
Hague he was under no teacher save the influence ex- 
erted by the work of old masters in their pictures. He 
went from Dusseldorf .to London, stopping on his re- 
turn, in Holland, afterward making a hasty trip through 
Italy to Paris, where he established himself in a fine 
studio, intending to make that city his home for a con- 
siderable time. But news of the death of his mother, 
in the year 1856, entirely changed his plans, and he 
determined at once to return to his home in the city of 
Washington. There he passed the following winter, 
and in the succeeding summer made a trip to Lake 
Superior, where he made many studies of Indians and 
frontier characters, returning to Washington in the 
winter, and going back to the North-west in the sum- 
mer, stopping on his return at Cincinnati, where he se- 
cured a studio and painted a number of portraits. He 
reached Washington in the month of June, 1858, and 
during that summer at the Capital he painted one of 
his largest pictures, and called it " The Old Kentucky 
Home." In the autumn of the same year he estab- 
lished himself in a studio in University Building, New 
York, and remained there fourteen years. 

Mr. Johnson was born in 1824, was married to 



Eastman Johnson. 153 

Elizabeth Buckley in 1869, and has one daughter. When 
I began this essay, I intended to group a number of 
artists about the subject of this sketch, and make him 
the central star ; but, on looking over the list, I found 
such a large number of distinguished painters in all the 
departments of the art, which, like that of printing, is, 
though in a higher sense, preservative of art, that I de- 
termined to let him, like Wordsworth's star, stand and 
shine alone. 



Ralph Waldo Emerson, 



POET AND ESSAYIST. 



His harp is silent ; shall successors rise, 

Toucbinj^ with venturous hand the trembling string, 
Kindle glad raptures, visions of surprise, 

And wake to ecstasy each slumbering thing ? 
Shall life and thought flash new in wondering eyes, 

As v/hen the seer transcendent, sweet and wise, 
Worldwide his native melodies did sing. 

Flushed with fair hopes and ancient memories ? 
Ah, no ; that matchless lyre shall silent lie ; 

None hath the vanished minstrel's wondrous skill 
To touch that instrument with art and will. 

With him winged poesy doth droop and die ; 
While our dull age, left voiceless, must lament 

The bard high Heaven hath for its service sent. 

— A. Bronson Alcott. 

P ALPH WALDO EMEESOJST was a teacher, a 
JL master, wliose attributes and acquisitions qualified 
him for the task of instructing teachers. He did not 
wear a harsh face, nor use the language of reproof in 
angrj tones, nor scornfully sway the rod of reproach. 
His lines seemed to have fallen to him in pleasant 
places. Concord was a part of his Paradise — the pres- 
ent a part of the eternity of his happiness. His face 
was a benediction ; his speech, philosophy blended 
with poetry ; and his rod, a baton directing a vast chorus 
of singers. He was not merely a tlieist, but a devout 
worshipper, too great to be dragged on dry land in the 
threadbare meshes of his own creed. Eiglit generations 
(154) 




KALPII WALDO EMEKSON. 



PLATE XVI 



Ralph Waldo Emerson. 155 

of ministers stood behind him, and pointed to him ; and 
he is the best residt of their talents and scholarship — 
the '' consummate flower " of the family. Before he was 
twenty-six years of age (in 1829) " he was ordained the 
colleague of Henry Ware, Jr." He was a plain, 
earnest and effective preacher, but too independent to 
follow the traditions of the church that accepted his 
service. He plowed deep, even to the roots of things ; 
for he was a radical, and didn't care whether or not 
his furrows were curved or straight. After a few years 
— less than half a dozen — he relinquished his charge 
and began his life-work as a lecturer, essayist, philoso- 
pher and poet. He was a religious man, and recog- 
nized the noblest intuitions — love of truth and jus- 
tice — as the inner light which cometli down from 
Heaven. He was a prophet, and the starry mantle was 
worn by him until it was exchanged for a shroud. If 
now and then he was found on the wrono- side of ortho- 
doxy, he always stood in the courage of noble manhood, 
on the right side of humanity. He was an eloquent 
seer, who said and wrote wise and good things, that 
seldom needed explanation or argument to vindi- 
cate their truth and beauty. Indeed, he did not have 
the genius to prove his philosophy or explain his 
proverbs by the use of reason. His utterances were 
luminous, often shining brighter than the side lights 
of evidence found in the figures and logic of other 
men. As an artist in the use of letters in prose, 
he never had a superior in this country. The same 
can not, however, be said of his verse, some of which 
is rough as granite, but never without nuggets of gold. 
I am here tempted in this off-hand sketch to quote 



156 Representative Men. 

from K. H. Stoddard's admirable poem in the Inde- 
jpendent of May 4th, 1882. 



With heads bent down, and slow, 
Where to-day do ye go. 
People of Concord, and why 
Are there tears unshed in the eye 
Of woman, and man, and child 
That follow like souls exiled ? 
But who and what do ye follow 
To that grave in Sleepy Hollow, 
Fresh dug in the warm, rich ground. 
Where flowers will soon abound — 
Roses, violets, all 
That the Mother's hands let fall, 
Scattering dew on the sod 
Where his feet so often have trod. 
Before the clouds on his soul 
Began to gather and roll. 
And the iron bell to toll ? 

What is that clamor of thine, 
Bell 1 thou art sounding afar. 
Like a cry flung down from a star — 
Hearken ! 'tis Seventy-nine ! " 
A great many years to live, 
Where all is so fugitive. 



He came of a clerical stock. 
For eight long generations, 
Which stood as firm as a rock, 
That the waters can not shock. 
Nor the anger of battling nations. 
Old, valorous Englishmen, 
With sword, and tongue and pen, 



Ralph Waldo Emerson, 157 

Swift as the lightning, slow 

As the turtle, centuries old, 

Fatal as when, unrolled, 

The rattlesnake darts his blow. 

His grandsire marched with his flock 

On that famous April morn 

When the Old World died, and the New was born. 



"Men of Concord," the pastor cried, 
Bible in hand and son by his side, 

" Stand." They stood. " They shall not advance." 
The light of his eye was a brandished lance. 

^' Malce ready. Present." Then, at the word, 

"It is not /who speak, but the Lord. 
Fire I " Two of their ranks went down — 
Blanch ard, a fifer, from Acton town. 
And Brown, of Concord, whose ancestor, 
One hundred and forty years before, 
With the sachem, Phillip, feared not to cope, 
Shot, at long range, in the woods of Mount Hope : 
The varlets were soon on the run, 
Scouring the road to Lexington, 
Their proud crests sunken, their banners furled, 
Scared by the shot heard round the world ! 

Wm. Llojd Garrison said in substance that the 
world was his country and all its inhabitants his country- 
men. Emerson's genius, like Magara (as John Quincy 
Adams, I think it was, said), was too great for one 
country ; so it was given to two. But Emerson be- 
longs to the civilized world, and is not confined to this 
continent. For nearly half a century he has been one of 
the foremost men of letters and teachers in the broadest 
sense, and he drew his inspiration from the Scriptures, 



158 Representative Men. 

from nature, from humanity, from history, and he 
lived up to his own ideal of manhood. He was brave, 
calm, and well-poised, never disturbed by the ordinary 
occurrences which made smaller men nervous and noisy. 
Events that jostled men (" wiser in their own conceit 
than seven men that could render a reason "), until 
they were tumbled from their paper thrones, did not 
ruffle his serene thought and temper. A distinguished 
writer says in the Encyclajprndia Britannica : 

He lias left his mark on the century, and his intense sug- 
gestiveness is the cause of thought in others ; and, as one of the 
genetic powers of modern literature, his fertilizing influence 
will survive his inconclusive speculations. He is original, nat- 
ural, attractive and direct; limpid in phrase and pure in fancy. 
His best eloquence flows as easily as a stream. In an era of ex- 
cessive reticence and cautious hypocrisy, he lives within a case 
of crystal, where there are no concealments. We never suspect 
him of withholding half of what he knows, or of formularizing 
for our satisfaction a belief which he docs not sincerely hold. 
He is transparently honest and honorable. His courage has no 
limits. Isolated by force of character, there is no weakness in 
his solitude. He leads us into a region where we escape at 
once from deserts and from noisy cities ; for he rises above, 
without depreciating, ordinary philanthropy ; and his philosophy 
at least endeavors to meet our daily wants. In every social and 
political controversy he has thrown his weight into the scale of 
Justice on the side of a rational and progressive liberty, and his 
lack of sympathy with merely personal emotions is recompensed 
by a veneration for the ideal of the race, which recalls a beauti- 
ful sentiment of Malebranche : " When I touch a human hand, 
I touch Heaven." 

The mark he made will remain through coming 
centuries, his suggestiveness will long continue to be 
the cause of thought in others, and his influence will 



Ralph Waldo Emerson. 159 

outlive much that is '' inconclusive " in his dreamy 
" speculations." The author of '^ Eepresentative Men " 
was a representative man. If he lived somewhat like a 
literary recluse in the quietude of his favorite flower 
" rhodora " in the woods, the beauty of his genius il- 
luminated the atmosphere about him, and led to his de- 
tection, not only by kindred souls, but by the tuft-hunt- 
ers and autograph-seekers, and the troops of little great 
men, who seek to distinguish themselves by going un-- 
invited into the company of the great. Emerson i'ould 
afford to look complacently down from his Olympian 
heights on such men, without disturbing his serenity. 
He^ had strength of will and inoffensive self-esteem, 
which kept him evenly poised where weaker men 
would have fallen, and which, when he was oracular 
as the gods, gave no offense to the pilgrims and fol- 
lowers kneeling at his shrine, for he had the art of con- 
cealing his egotism under his strong personality. He 
was a dreamer, poet, pantheist, transcendentalist, op- 
timist, and philosopher, whose mission was to write es- 
says and verse, and put wise sayings into palpitating 
sentences. He saw things less by the light of reason 
than through the medium of fancy and imagination, yet 
with these peculiarities he possessed the Yankee shrewd- 
ness to care for the future, for at his death he had 
amassed. $200,000 by his earnings and savings. The 
editor of the Christian Intelligencer said: "He did 
for literature what Wendell Phillips has done for pub- 
lic speech." Like the other great uiasters in American 
letters, Irving, Bryant, Longfellow, Hawthorne, he led 
a good life, starred with good deeds, and departed with- 
out a stain on the disc of his irreproachable fame. The 



i6o ■ Representative Men. 

purity, sweetness and dignity of his character command 
the homage of all enlightened peoples familiar with his 
beautiful and charming works. As a lecturer, it was 
his matter rather than his manner that held the atten- 
tion and applause of his hearers. He did not succeed 
in extemporaneous speech. The writer heard Mr. Em- 
erson at an anti-slavery meeting, when he followed Phil- 
lips. The contrast was striking and disastrous to the 
sage of Concord, and he seemed to be conscious of 
the fact that he stood in the shadow of the great Kew 
England orator. Mr. Emerson stammered and hesita- 
ted and fumbled with his watch-guard, and repeated his 
sentences, and, after ten minutes' stumbling over dis- 
connected ideas, he abruptly retreated from the front of 
the platform to his chair, his face flushed with disap- 
pointment. 

Emerson has a permanent place in literature as a 
writer of poetic verse and prose. In the former he is 
fettered at times, in the latter he is always free. In 
" Each and All " we have a picture flt for " Mem- 
ory's walls." The facts flower into a perfect poem. 

The heifer that lows in the upland farm, 
Far heard, lows not thine ear to charm. 

Here the rhyme gives the sound of the sense. The 
lines are clear and compact ; coherent and musical. The 
following couplet is worthy of Wordsworth : 

Over me soared the eternal sky, 
Full of light and of deity. 

The sage of Concord brings out his idea in bold re- 
lief, regardless of the expense of measure or I'hythm or 
rhyme. 



Ralph Waldo Emerson. i6i 



In diflerence sweet, 
Play glad with the breezes, 
Old playfellows meet. 

The journeying atoms, 

Primordial wholes, 
Firmly draw, firmly drive, 

By their animate poles. 

He is always concise, sometimes obscure. But here 
is something put in a new L'ght and in forcible lan- 
guage : 

Out of the heart of nature rolled 

The burdens of the Bible old. 

Mr. Emerson saw the works of nature, admired and 
responded with emotion — shall I say, with esthetic rev- 
ery. He had microscopic and telescopic vision, and dis- 
covered what had not been revealed to other seekers 
after " the beautiful and the true." The materiality 
and the spirituality of nature were visible to him. Mr. 
Frank Guiwitts, one of the best literary critics in this 
country, says of Emerson's verse, " You have it all — 
the music, the glow — a clear, white, inherent heat, solar, 
or like the spark. His music is the melody that lives 
in his materials ; it is not made as our music poets 
manufacture it." 

Deep, deep are loving eyes, 

Flowed with naphtha fiery sweet ; 

And the point is Paradise, 
Where their glances meet. 

Their reach shall yet be more profound, 

And a vision without bound. 



1 62 Representative Men. 

The axis of those eyes' sun clear. 
Be the axis of the sphere, 

So shall the lights, ye pour amain, 
Go witliout check or introvales, 
Through from the empyrean walls, 

Unto the same again. 

He does not stop to deny what others assert, nor to 
prove what he asserts himself. He is as self-assured as 
if he had a commission signed and sealed by the All- 
Father to enlighten the universe of mankind. 

Amatory poetry was not in his line, yet he wrote the 
following : 

O fair and stately maid, ^"hose eyes 
Were kindled in the upper skies 
At the same torch that lighted mine ; 
For so I must interpret still 
Thy sweet dominion o'er my will, 
A sympathy divine. 

Ah ! let me blameless gaze upon 
Features that seem at heart my own, 
Nor fear those wretched sentinels, 
Who charm the more their glance fordids, 
Chaste-glowing underneath their lids. 
With fire that draws while it repels. 

He never Avrote to please a particular audience. He 
never withheld anything he had written for fear of the 
critics. He was a born master and leader, and stood 
upon a starry pedestal, swaying his baton and bringing 
out the richest and sweetest music of the spheres. Of 
all American authors he is one of the most quota- 
ble, and I will quote one of his masterpieces. 



RalpJi Waldo Emerson. 163 

Burly, dozing humble bee, 
Where thou art is clime for me. 
Let them sail for Pdrto Rique, 
Far offbeats through seas to seek ; 
I will follow thee alone, 
Thou animated torrid zone ! 
Zigzag-steerer, desert-cheerer, 
Let me chase thy waving lines. 
Keep me nearer — me thy hearer, 
Singing over shrubs and vines. 

Insect lover of the sun, 

Joy of thy dominion ! 

Sailor of the atmosphere ; 

Swimmer through the waves of air ; 

Voyager of light and noon ; 

Epicurean of June, 

Wait, I prythee, till I come. 

Within earshot of thy hum, 

All without is martyrdom. 

When the south wind in May days, 

With a net of shining haze. 

Silvers the horizon wall. 

And with softness touching all, 

Tints the human countenance 

With a color of romance, 

And infusing subtle heats, 

Turns the sod to violets ; 

Thou in sunny solitudes. 

Rover of the underwoods, 

Thou green silence dost displace, 

With thy mellow, breezy bass. 

Hot midsummer's petted crone. 
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone 
Tells of countless sunny hours. 
Long days and solid bank of flowers, 



164 Representative Men. 

Of gulfs of sweetness without bound, 
In Indian wilderness found, 
Of Syrian jJeace, immortal leisure, 
Firmest cheer and birdlike pleasure. 

Aught unsavory or unclean 
Hath my insect never seen ; 
But violets and bilberry bells. 
Maple-sap and daffodils, 
Grass with green flag half-mast high, 
Succory to match the sky, 
Columbine with horn of honey. 
Scented fern and agrimony, 
Clover, catchfly, adder's tongue. 
And brier roses dwelt among ; 
All beside was unknown waste, 
All was picture as he passed. 

Wiser far than human seer. 
Yellow-breeched philosopher. 
Seeing only what is fair, 
Sipping only what is sweet. 
Thou dost mock at fate and care, 
Leave the chaff and take the wheat. 
When the fierce northwestern blast 
Cools sea and land so far and fast. 
Thou already slumberest deep. 
Woe and want thou canst outsleep, 
Want and woe which torture us. 
Thy sleep makes ridiculous. 

More than half a century ago, Mr. Emers m read a 
poem before the students and professors of Harvard 
University. A member of the class of 1821 wrote in 
his diary, " Kalph Waldo Emerson's poem was some- 
what superior to the general expectation." At that 
time he was airing his earhest songs and speeches in the 



Ralph Waldo Emerson. 165 

atmosphere of public criticism. The following sylla- 
bles of some of his lines bear the impress of the 
graceful poet, warm with a tender sentiment. He 
touches all subjects, and always with a master's hand, 
and in a teachable spirit. Here is a lesson : 

The mountain and the squirrel 
Had a quarrel ; 

And the former called the latter "Little Prig." 
Bun replied, 
" You are doubtless very big ; 
But all sorts of things and weather 
Must be taken in together, 
To make up a year, 
And a sphere. 
And I think it no disgrace 
To occupy my place. 
If I'm not so large as you. 
You are not so small as I, 
And not half so spry. 
I'll not deny you make 
A very pretty squirrel track ; 
Talents differ ; all is well and wisely put ; 
If I can not carry forests on my back, 
Neither can you crack a nut." 

Several years ago the author of this sketch published 
a few extracts from the writings of the poet-prophet, 
with a brief outline of his personal appearance. Will 
the reader pardon the repetition of the following ? 

These brief extracts represent the style of our great poet- 
preacher — preaching in the great temple, and from the book of 
Nature, where the hills are his pulpit, and the lilies are his 
lighted candles. He has the world of thought for his appreci- 
ative audience. How modestly this cultivated and gifted gentle- 



1 66 Representative Men. 

man wears his singing robes. Should the reader happen to see 
him in his quiet rural retreat at Concord, he would take him for 
a well-to-do and intelligent farmer of sixty, although he is far 
on the shady side of three-score years and ten. In person he is 
tall, thin, and erect, with bleached hair, blue eyes, and a long, 
narrow face, a nose like an eagle's bill — in a word, he has a face 
of the true Yankee type. When he sj^eaks, he is eloquent, but 
his eloquence is in what he says, and not in the way he says it. 
He gives you gold by the ingot. In his eloquent si3eech of wel- 
come to Kossuth, he said : " The people of this town (Concord) 
share with their countrymen the admiration of valor and perse- 
verance; they, like their compatriots, have been hungry to see 
the man whose extraordinary eloquence is seconded by the splen- 
dor and solidity of his actions. But as it is a privilege of the 
people of this town to keep a hallowed mound which has a place 
in the story of the country ; as Concord is one of the monuments 
of freedom, we knew beforehand tliat you could not go by us, 
you could not take all your steps in the pilgrimage of American 
liberty, until you had seen with your eyes the ruins of the little 
bridge, where a handful of brave farmers oi^ened our Revolution. 
Therefore we sat and waited for you." 

Ralph Waldo Emerson is recognized as the most profound 
essayist and thinker on the lecture list. But he lacks eloquence, 
and his manner of reading is sometimes unattractive. Those 
who hear him, have to think in order to understand him, and 
too many lecture-goers desire to be entertained and not to be 
educated. They go to be amused and excited, not to be lifted 
to a higher plane of intelligence. The golden maxims, the ex- 
quisite poetry, the sublime flights of the imagination have less 
charm for them tiian the story-telling and acting of those who 
strut upon the stage and rattle a few funny things in the shell 
of what is called a literary lecture. The Sage of Concord is 
truly a great man, an honor to American letters at home and 
abroad. He is one of the most competent men to teach, and is 
intellectually a head and shoulders taller than most men who 
force themselves upon the lecture rostrum, yet his price is only 
from $50 to $100 per lecture. 



Ralph JVaido Emerson. 6y 

The excellent portrait in Harper's Weelcly is before 
me. What a fine head, '' the Qgg of a new civilization.'' 
There is a pleasant smile on his countenance, and there 
is not an atom of vanity or affectation in it. The eyes 
are wells of light, and there is '' no mud at the bottom." 
The lips are closely pressed, and will give no reason on 
"compulsion," or otherwise, for the utterance of his 
proverbs and poetic thoughts. The nose would, have de- 
lighted Napoleon, had. he found it on the face of 
one of his marshals, and there is power enough in that 
chin for the greatest commander of men. No wise man 
w^ould dare to take liberties in the shadow of such a 
majestic front, and no child would shrink' in fear from 
it. How plain the dress; a collar turned over a black 
necktie, a white shirt bosom without the light of 
diamonds or the glow of gold. The light is within, 
and the gold can be found in his books. A glance at 
his portrait shows the observer that it represents a 
man who has extracted a vast deal of the sweetness of 
human happiness from the flowers which he found in 
this "earthly paradise." " His mind to him a king- 
dom is," and its faculties and attributes subject to his 
soul-will worked in harmony with his well-balanced or- 
ganization, and the inspiration of his subtle intuitions. 

Thousands who have listened to his lectures, will re- 
call the happy, thought-lit face, and the magnetic voice 
of the mighty man who has fallen. He has iiillen, but he 
is not dead, only asleep, and it is the body that sleeps. 
The soul which he declared could not die, nor grow 
old, lives in eternal serenity, and we trust it lives 
in that peace and happiness which passeth all under- 
6tandi4ig. 



1 68 Representative Men, 

Bryant, Longfello^y, and Emerson have left great 
spaces in the world of letters, and there are none to fill 
the places thej vacated. All of these men could trace 
their lineage to a noble ancestry. Emerson was, as else- 
where stated, the descendant of eight generations of 
preachers. In 1817, he entered Harvard, and graduated 
four years later . at the age of nineteen (Bancroft, 
Everett, Sumner, and Motley graduated before they 
were twenty). He did not rank high in his class, but 
he was made class-poet. After graduating he taught 
school in Boston five years. In 1830 he married Ellen 
Louisa Tucker. Previous to this time he had been 
preaching. In 1832 he announced a change in his 
theological opinions. The same year he went to Eng- 
land, and became acquainted with Coleridge, Carlyle, 
Wordsworth, and other great men. When he re- 
turned he published a thin volume of poems, and in 
twelve years only 600 copies were sold. Having 
lost his first wife, he married, in 1835, Miss Lydia 
Jackson, who survives him. He had four children ; 
three of them are now living — a married and a single 
daughter, and a son who is a practicing physician. 
The last time that Mr. Emerson left his home, was to 
be present at tlie funeral of the poet Longfellow, on the 
26th of March. The bells of Concord announced the 
sad news by tolling seventy-nine strokes. The burial 
services were held on Sunday ; hundreds of persons 
from Boston and elsewhere were present. Dr. Furness, 
an old schoolfellow, made a brief address, after which 
the coffin was borne to the Unitarian church, a building 
famous in revolutionary history. Among those pre- 
sent were Geo. W. Curtis, Oliver Wendell Holmes, 



Ralph Waldo Emerson. 169 

Kev. Dr. Hoskens, and President Eliot, of Harvard 
College. 

I have space for only a few suggestions and reminis- 
cences which I find in the Critic^ May 6, 1882. Walt 
Whitman, whose prose is always beautiful, says : 

So used are we to suppose a heroic death can only come from 
out of battle or storm or mighty personal contest or amid dra- 
matic incidents of danger (have we not been taught so for ages 
by all the plays and poems?) that few even of those who most 
sympathizingly mourn Emerson's departure, will fully appreciate 
the ripened grandeur of that event with its play of calm and fit- 
ness, like evening light on the sea. How shall I henceforth 
dwell on the blessed hours, when not long since, I saw that be- 
nignant face, the clear eyes, the silently smiling mouth, the form 
yet upright in its great age — to the very last — with so much 
spring and cheeriness, and such an absence of decrepitude that 
even the term venerable hardly seemed fitting. 

John Burroughs, in a very eloquent essay, remarks : 

What sweet, nutty, meaty, compact books he has bequeathed 
us ; germinal, brain-repairing, full of phosphorus, the very pith 
and marrow of thought, without any of the husks and shells. 
How his poetry, how his prose is wannowed. 

"I hung my verses in the wind, 
Time and tide their faults may find, 
All were winnowed through and through, 
Five lines lasted sound and true !" 

He abridges and concentrates like the alchymy of nature. 
" Novalis " called one of his books the " Polen of Flowers," a title 
that might be appropriately applied to all of Emerson's, his 
thought is so subtle so fertilizing, and the result of such perfect 
spiritual bloom. Who that ever saw that wise, benignant, unim- 
peachable look of his can ever forget it ? — a look at once genial 
and austere, a look so winning and considerate, and yet de- 
manding your best. The subtle, half-defined smile, was the 

unconscious reflection of his serene, benignant soul It 

8 



170 Representative Men. 

was fit that he should pass away in April, the month of Shakes- 
peare's birth and death, the month that opens the door of the 

more genial season He was an April man, an awakener, 

full of light, full of prophecy, full of a vernal freshness and cu- 
riosity, hardy, tender, coy, genial, frank, elusive, simi^le, joyous, 
and with the fibre and the quality of the primal man. Peace to 
his great soul. 

F. B. Sanborn, when he was a college student, in 
July, 1853, called on the sage, and observes in his 
reminiscences : 

I found him sitting in the study where I have so often seen 
him, negligently clad in the rusty garb of a scholar, who had 
been, perhaps, working in his garden, and being then as atten- 
tive to costume as young men in college and in love are wont to 
be. I noticed that his shoes were well worn and unbrushed, and 
I thought of the carelessness in dress, which was characteristic 

of another great American, Thomas Jefferson I did not 

overstay the prescribed ten minutes on this first call, but quickly 
went on my way, and for months I saw him no more. 

I will conclude these extracts with a quotation from 
the Critic's editorial : 

The critics have spoken of his philosophy. If he had any, it 
was essentially this : to confront human assumptions honestly, to 
look them squarely in the eye while he questioned them, and to 
tell them what ne.v beauty, as yet unappropriated by them, he 
could discover in the world. To him the world was yet full of 
new possibilities. Its present was greater than its past; its fut- 
ure grand beyond conception. The past may have led back to 
the divine beginning of things; but that was elementary. The 
future looked to the glorious consummations. It had in it the 
more s-oUd growth, the flower, the fruit. The soil of human 
nature was still rich; the roots of life were strong; the mighty 
and well-proportiimed trunk ne ded no lirojiping. 



Ralph ]Valdo Emerson. 171 

After a short illness, he died on the evening of the 27th 
of April, in the Y9th year of his age. His death was peace- 
ful and apparently painless. Emerson was a preacher 
whose sermons were songs and essays, and the best cul- 
tivated people of the civilized world were embraced in 
his communion. With the foresight and vision of a 
prophet, he spoke with the authority of those who 
do not pin their faith to the dogmas and diplomas of 
the colleges. He was the interpreter of nature, and 
studied the laws that govern the earth below and the 
heavens above. In the words of Dr. Holmes, "He 
was an iconoclast, without a hammer who took down 
our idols from their pedestals so tenderly that it seemed 
like an act of worship." He would say to the noisy 
disputant, "■ Stand aside and let God think." His life 
was rounded in a briUiant star that will shine forever 
in the firmament of the future. The majestic power 
and sweetness of his character seem to be in direct op- 
position to that of the scolding critic Carlyle. Emer- 
son was serene, calm, self-poised, subtle, often reticent, 
never rampant and noisy. Carlyle was a prophet of 
evil, a philosopher influenced as much by a dyspeptic 
stomach as by a powerful, cultivated, and brilliant head. 
The American soared sunward like the eagle, without 
a shade above his eyes, and he saw beyond the horizon 
that bounds the vision of other men. The Scotchman, 
with microscopic glance, saw both " mice and men," 
and had, in his unhappy moods, no respect for either 
mice or men, and yet he was a great man and a philos- 
opher. Like Emerson, he was a student of human life ; 
unlike him, he had no pity for its misfortunes, no pa- 
tience with its faults. Like the gi-eat " Yankee," he 



1^2 Rcprese^itative Men. 

was a representative man, and the world was his con- 
stituency. They were both teachers, but one used the 
ruler and the rattan, the other governed by the charm 
of his manner and the music of his diction. One had 
suavity and dignity with golden speech, the other had 
eloquence like that of Demosthenes when with pebbles 
in his moutli he endeavored to shout louder than the 
monotonous and clamorous sea. 




HON. CHARLES J. FOLGER. 



PLATE XVII. 



Charles J. Folger, 

JUDGE, STATESMAN, AND CABINET OFFICER. 



"Let him but talk of any State affair, 
You'd say it had been all his study." 

CHARLES JAMES FOLGEE is a resident of the 
quiet and picturesque town of Geneva, New York. 
A correspondent of the New York Tribune sajs : 

What Seward was to Auburn, Judge Folger is to Geneva. He 
does not forget his townsmen, and is pleased to call Geneva his 
iiome, and, whenever opportunity offers, to revisit the scenes of his 
eaily labors. His plain, unpretentious, but comfortable brown 
frame dwelling stands amid the trees on the hill overlooking the 
lake, commanding a view of its picturesque banks for many 
miles, and to use the words of a neighbor, the latch-string al- 
ways hangs out for his friends. 

Judge Folger was born in Nantucket, April 16, 1818. 
His paternal ancestors settled there two hundred years 
ago; his mother, however, was a native of England. 
When the subject of this sketch was about ten years of 
age, his parents moved to Geneva, N. Y. He studied in 
the common schools and afterward at Hobart Colleo-e, 
taking the Baccalaureate in 1836, and the first honor of 
his class. After leaving college he studied law with Mark 
H. Sibley and Alvah Word en, of Canandaigua, and was 
admitted to the bar when he w^as twenty-one years of age. 
He soon gained a local reputation as a thoughtful, stu- 

(173) 



174 Representative Men. 

dious, painstaking lawyer — indeed, he not only investiga- 
ted his cases thoroughly, but committed them to memory. 
Five years later, when he was only twenty-six years of 
age. Governor Bouck appointed him to a judgeship in 
the Ontario district — a position he relinquished after 
twelve months' service, to become a Master and Exam- 
iner in Chancery. In 1851 he was elected County 
Judge of Ontario County, and held the place four 
years. At that time he was a Silas Wright Democrat, 
afterward he joined the '' Barnburners," and then 
" easily swung over " into the Republican ranks, then 
just crystallizing in a party organization. In 1861 he 
was elected to the State Senate of New York, and re- 
elected in 1863, '65, and '67, thus serving eight years 
in succession, and acting as President jpro tern, of that 
branch of the State Parliament a part of the time. In 
186Y he was a member of the Constitutional Conven- 
tion, and Chairman of its Judiciary Committee. While 
a member of the Legislature he was a pronounced, out- 
spoken, uncompromising opponent of all rings and mo- 
nopolies. The Tribune correspondent from whose 
sketch I have already quoted, says : 

Mr. Folger also distinguished himself by taking a bold stand 
against Tweed's tax levies for New York City, in one instance 
extending the session and continuing the contest three days 
rather than yield a single point. It has been sometimes asserted 
that Mr. Folger voted for the Tweed charter in 1870 ; but that is 
a mistake, because he was not then a member of the Senate. He 
was asked by a Senator what it was best to do in regard to the 
matter, and he telegraphed from New York to vote against the 
charter. The Senator did not follow the advice, however, but 
afterward suffered in consequence. Judge Folger was a firm, 
consistent and honest opponent of the Tweed legislation, but he 



Charles J. Folger. 175 

did not therefore incur the hostility of the Tweed politicians, so 
that when he came to be elected Judge of the Court of Appeals 
in 1870 he received unexpected aid in that quarter. In IMay, 
1880, at the death of Chief-Judge Church, Governor Cornell ap- 
pointed Mr. Folger to fill the vacancy, and in the same year he 
was elected to the place for a full term of fourteen years. 

In 1869 President Grant appointed him Assistant Uni- 
ted States Treasurer in New York, a position he occu- 
pied but one year ; but he administered its duties with 
marked abiUty and won golden opinions as a masterful 
financier. In 18Y0, when the Court of Appeals of the 
State w^as reorganized, he was elected an Associate 
Judge, and on the death of Chief-Judge Church, as be- 
fore stated, he was chosen to fill the vacancy. Re- 
cently President Arthur tendered to him the Treasury 
portfolio, which he at first declined, but afterward ac- 
cepted at the earnest solicitation of the President. 

There is no doubt that Judge Folger made a considerable sac- 
rifice in resigning his office on the bench, for had he contin- 
ued to serve six years more he would have been entitled to 
retire on the full salary for the remainder of his term, which 
would not expire until 1894. At least this is the construction 
generally placed upon the constitutional provision governing 
such cases, and the interpretation under which the State author- 
ities are acting. Mr. Folger is not accounted wealthy, but is 
said to be worth over $100,000. 



Many persons have been anxious to learn Mr, Folger's views 
in regard to Civil Service Reform and such questions;. The 
Tribune correspondent, in a few moments' conversation with 
Judge Folger on a train recently, introduced this subject, and 
inquired of him if he approved of the system of political assess- 
ments. 



176 Representative Me7i. 

"I do not," he replied, "as now conducted. An assessment 
indicates something imposed upon a person, and I am opposed 
to anything of that kind." 

" What do you think of the system of promotion in the civil 
service? " 

" All clerks, excepting chief clerks and assistant secretaries, 
that have been appointed in my Dej^artment since I have been 
there, have had to undergo examination as to qualification, and 
have been placed on probation. I have allowed no removals for 
political purposes, and have not allowed any new clerks to be 
appointed over the heads of men already in the Department. All 
new appointments have had to begin at the bottom round of 
the ladder. I have allowed no removals in custom houses for 
political purposes. Necessarily I do not include olBcers whom 
I have no power to appoint. Collectors are held responsible 
for their subordinates, and with certain restrictions as to quali- 
fications are allowed to appoint them." 

"Do you allow political assessments to be levied in your 
Department ? '' 

"No. I refused consent to any person to go through the De- 
partment to collect assessments, and if anything of the kind has 
been done it has been in my absence." 

Judge Folger did not seek the Cabinet office of Sec- 
retary of the United States Treasury ; the President, 
with his wise discrimination, sought him. In early life 
Mr. Folger was faithful over a few things ; is it strange 
that now, after years of excellent service, he should be 
chosen " ruler over many " % The dominant trait of this 
most trustworthy man, is clear perception controlled by 
sound judgment. Whatever he hnds to do, he does 
calmly, carefully, under the direction of his judicial 
mind. He is never in haste and never indolent, and 
few accomplish so much work in a given time. Labor 
is not a cause of discomfort to the man who wants to 
do something and do it well, for he 



diaries J. Folgcr. lyy 

'' Deems that clay lost, whose low receding sun 
Makes record of no worthy action done." 

Mature having endowed liini with a strong mind in 
a strong body, he can bear burdens of toil that would 
crush smaller and weaker men. His temperament is 
happily combined, so that he has endurance associated 
with energy, and his brain, while great in power, is 
fine in quality. The face shows courage, calmness, self- 
poise, firmness and force of will, over which plays the 
light of tenderness and benevolence. Should the Ship 
of State be overtaken in a storm, he would be a strono- 
man to hold the helm, while the patriotic (^aptain gave 
his commands. In a late number of the Phrenolorjical 
Journal I find the following description of Judge 
Folger : 

The head appears to be large, well poised and harmoniously 
balanced; the fullness across the brow indicates quick capacity 
for gaining knowledge and forming critical judgments ; the mid- 
dle and upper sections of the forehead show retentiveness of 
memory, power of reasoning, and especially the ability to analyze, 
sift and criticise. That is a good head for science, for history, 
for the prosecution of literature or practical business. As a law- 
yer he would carry his case in his head, and be expert in meet- 
ing emergencies and cool in conducting intricate and responsi- 
ble questions. He does not lose his self-possession ; if he were 
master of a vessel he would be as stern as iron when there was 
danger, and would seem to be, perhaps, the only cool man on 
board. 

He seems to have been endowed with genius for 
analysis, and combative courage for decisive action. 

The common coifee-house politician waits for the 
windfalls of "good luck" and the revelations of events. 
He hops up at the caucus and convention and makes " a 
8*^ 



lyS Representative Men, 

few feeble remarks" for the reporter to put into his 
newspaper, and considers himself bigger than the great- 
est and wisest of men. The genuine statesman is a very 
different being. He may err, but his error will not be 
through a lack of judgment, but jper contra in conse- 
quence of an excess of other attributes. The stolid man, 
who glories in the noise he makes at a ward meeting, 
thinks he is eminently practical, when he really is like 
the Frankenstein image of wood, shaped like a man, but 
too stupid to make a blunder, and can only go when he 
is wound up by a master mind. The want of thought, 
passion and imagination he mistakes for solid sense and 
profound wisdom. The thinkers are the rulers of the 
race ; they live longer than other people, because they 
breathe more of the pure atmosphere of immortality. 
They bequeath to the present and to coming genera- 
tions, wholesome laws for the protection of the people ; 
they render decisions in the courts of justice that stand 
like milestones on the road of progression, measuring the 
distance that equity and science have journeyed. The 
men of thought and the men of action are the natural 
leaders of mankind. 

Julius Cffisar showed as much skill and genius in 
writing his commentaries as he did in conducting his 
campaigns. That man is a master who uses, in the best 
way, proper means to good ends; who puts ideas into 
organizations ; who wields with skill and power the 
complicated affairs of society; who subjects the wills 
of others to his own will ; who can foresee the train of 
events that are coming through openings of events. 
Such a man with nerve and brain and heart is a nat- 
ural ruler of men. 




HON. FREDEHICK DOUGLAS. 



PLATE XVlll 



Frederick Douglas,* 



THE NEGRO ORATOR AND WRITER. 



*'I am black, but comely." —Solomon. 

THE introduction to this sketcli which was pubhshed 
several years ago, when Frederick Douglas was in 
his prime, was written by the editor of the Phrenological 
Journal : 

Frederick Douglas stands not far from six feet high, and is 
well proportioned. He is thin, however, rather than stout, but 
is very tough, wir}^, hardy, and enduring. There is considerable 
of the motive and mental temperaments, with less of the vital, 
which gives him a Cassius-hke " lean and hungry look." He is a 
natural worker, and could not live a passive, idle life. The brain 
is of full-size, high in the crown and full at the base. If his fore- 
head does not indicate the philoso^Dher, it certainly indicates the 
practical observer and the man of facts. If he have not largo 
Ideality to give him poetical feeling and imagery, he has Sublim- 
ity, which imparts a sense of the grand and majestic. If he 



* We have often been requested to give a portrait and sketch of this 
distinguished personage. Until now, however, it has not been conven- 
ient, nor have we had a perfect photograph from which to engrave a 
likeness. 

It should not be inferred that we take sides with either of the political 
parties, because we publish leading representatives of both ; and we try 
to malie our descriptions as impartial as the truth. We do not hold our- 
selves accountable to men, but to our Maker, and we could not afford to 
flatter any man for his entertainment, or to amuse the public. We shall 
neither add to nor subtract from the real merits of any man, but simply 
describe him as we find bim. 

(179) 



i8o Representative Men. 

have not the sense of obedience or subserviency toward men, he 
has respect for Deity and regard for subjects sacred. Indeed, 
there is nothing of the sycophant about him, nor could he be 
any man's humble servant. On the contrary, there are indica- 
tions of dignity, "will, self-reliance, and sense of independence. 
Docs this face express submission or a feeling of inferiority ? It 
is quite the contrary. Kor does it ask favors — it demands its 
rights. There is no bending of the knee or fdwning here. Com- 
bativeness is clearly expressed. Destructiveness is not wanting, 
and Executiveness is seen in every line and wrinkle. Yet it is not 
a repulsive face. There are high soldierly qualities there. With 
his love of liberty and sense of honor he would not yield a point 
when in the right, and would defend himself, his friend, or a 
principle to the last. 

Intellectually, there are literary abilities, especially descriptive 
powers. There is large Language to make him copious in ex- 
pression; and theie are large perceptive faculties, tnabling him 
to be a good obsever, fond of travel, and disposed to look into 
all subjects of a scientific or practical nature. There is less of 
the abstract, metaphysical, or merely theoretical, but it is emi- 
nently an available intellect. 

Morally, there are both Benevolence and Veneration. Tie has 
also a fair degree of Hopefulness, but is not easily elated. His 
sense of Justice is quite as active as it could be supposed to be 
considering the circumstances of his birth and life. 

Socially, he is friendly, affectionate, and even loving; w^ould 
enjoy the domestic relations as well as other men. This is indi- 
cated both in the face and in the brain. He has ftnr Construct- 
iveness, and would exhibit mechanical talent. Acquisitiveness 
is moderate. He would probably mnke money easier than keep 
it; is far from being wasteful, yet he is disposed to be generrms 
and open-handed. Caution is moderate, hence he is the oppo- 
site of an irresolute, timid, chicken-hearted person ; indeed, he 
is decidedly " plucky," and would venture wherever occasion 
should require, without a feeling of hesitancy or fear. He is 
mindful of appearances, regardful of his honor, and would do 
nothing which would lower him in the estimation of himself or 
the w^orld. 



Frederick Doiarlcis. 



i>' 



To sum up, it may be stated that lie is proud-spirited, self- 
relying and independent, with great energy, strong, practical 
common sense, uncommon powers of observation, and strong af- 
fection. He is kind-hearted, devotional, and in every way a 
thoroughly go-ahead personage. Such a person will hoc his ov;n 
row, i3addle his own canoe, and try to be always his own master. 

Frederick Douglas was born at Tuckahoe, Talbot County, 
Maryland, in 1817. His mother being a black and his father a 
white, he combines the qualities of both races. Until the age of 
ten he worked as a slave on a plantation ; then he was sent to 
Baltimore, where he was hired from his master by the proprietor 
of a ship-yard. Here his indomitable spirit secretly cherished 
the hope of casting off the shackles which galled him. By per- 
sistent and clandestine effort he learned to read and write, and 
mddug good progress in his occupation earned good wages — for 
his owner, receiving for himself but a small pittance^ At the 
age (f twenty-one he availed himself of an opportunity, and fled 
from Baltimore northward. He made his way to New Bedford, 
Mass., where he worked on the docks and in various shops, sup- 
porting himself and his family (for he married soon after his ar- 
rival in Nev/ Bedford) by daily labor. In 1841 he attended an 
anti-slavery convention at Nantucket, ami in the ardor of his 
enthusiasm made a speech which was so well received, that at 
the close of the meeting he was offered the position of agent by 
the Society, to travel and address the public on the subject of 
slavery. This he accepted, and imnudiately set about, and dur- 
ing four years went from place to place through the New England 
States lecturing. Subsequently he visited Great Britain, and de- 
livered public addresses in the principal cities and towns there, 
receiving a cordial welcome, and being himored with large 
audiences. 

In 184G his friends in England subscribed £150 sterling ($750) 
for the purpose of purchasing his freedom in due form of law. After 
his return to the United States in 1847, Mr. Douglas took up his 
residence in Rochester, N. Y., where he commenced the pu' liea- 
tion of Frederich Douglas' Paper, which was conducted with con- 
siderable ability, in the interest of the anti-slavery movement. 
This paper was suspended some years since. 



1 82 Representative Men. 

In 1845 lie published an autobiography, entitled ''Life of 
Frederick Douglas," which excited no little interest. This work 
lie revised and enlarged ia 1855, under the name of- My Bond- 
age and my Freedom." 

Mr. G-. W. Bungay sends us the following personal sketch of 
Mr. Douglas as he appears from his standpoint : 

''How shall I paint the portrait of a black man ? Can it be 
done with blots and lines of ink, leaving the uninked paper to 
represent the whites of the eyes and the ivories ? Bat the sub- 
ject of my sketch is not entirely black ; there is mixed blood in 
his veins. He belongs, however, to the negro race, and is in all 
respects one of its noblest types. Physically, mentally, and mor- 
ally he is a grand specimen of manhood, and any race might be 
proud to claim him as a representative man. Notvvith standing 
his unpopular complexion and the unfashionable kink of his 
hair, he is decidedly good-looking ; and he never ajipeared to 
better advantage than he did on Monday evening, the 39th of 
January, at the Academy of Music in the city of Brooklyn. The 
doors of that splendid liall did not turn on golden hinges to re- 
ceive him. A few of its managers were afflicted with colorophobia, 
and were so blinded with prejudice they could not see the star 
of genius shining through the midnight of a man's color. The 
mean minority were overruled, however, and the distinguished 
orator was invited to the platform. The Uite^ the literati and the 
aristocracy of the City of Churches hastened to the hall like guests 
to a festival, filling it to its utmost capacity; and when the fa- 
mous speaker stepped toward the footlights he was greeted with 
cheer upon cheer. After bowing his acknowledgments, he pro- 
ceeded modestly with his lecture; like all men of true genius he is 
modest and utterly devoid of affectation. His voice accords with 
his physique and manner, and takes its tone from the sentiment 
uppermost in his mind — now soft— now tender — now ringing like 
gold coins dropped upon marble — now harsh and strong like the 
clanking of breaking chains. As he warms in the discussion 
his face fiiirly gleams with emotion and his eyes glow ' like twin 
lights of the firmament.' His hearers are charmed with his 
magnetic utterance, and wonder how a colored man, born a 
slave, excluded from the advantages of education, obtained such 



Frederick Douglas, 183 

a command of elegant English, and how he was taught to be so 
accurate in liis jDronunciation. As he advances, their wonder 
cuhninatcs in admiration of the solidity of his logic, the beauty 
of his illustrations, and his thrilling touches of humor and pathos ; 
and they are forced to the conclusion that he is a natural orator 
speaking under the inspiration of genius, and they forget the 
color of his skin, the crisp of his hair, and the fact that he came 
of an oppressed race. His eloquence would command attention 
at a mass meeting in the public square or in the House of Com- 
mons. His radical o23inions were received with the most enthu- 
siastic cheering from the creme de la crenie of the city of Brook- 
lyn, and at the close of his splendid argument he was honored 
with three hearty cheers. 

" Mr. Douglas is no meteor streaming over the heavens and dis- 
appearing in the darkness, but a star of considerable magnitude, 
growing brighter and brighter in the firmament of fame. His 
reputation is national, and it is not confined to this country. He 
is known wherever the English language is spoken, and is so pop- 
ular in England that the announcement of his name never fails 
to draw an audience. Though upward of fifty years of age lie 
has the force and power and fire of bis earlier days, and may be 
considered as in the maturity of his manhood. He writes almost 
as well as he speaks; but there is no magnetism in types. His 
style is clear, even, forcible, incisive, and epigrammatic. In 
person he is tall, six feet in height, straight, and of good mould. 
His complexion is dark-brown, his features are not of the negro 
cast, his nose being aquiline and his lips thin. In his manner 
be is a gentleman, and he has long been a welcome guest at the 
fireside of many of our best families. 

" Those who have seen his grand head, now partially silvered, 
will not easily forget him; and those who have heard him will 
remember his words, which are ' like apples of gold in pictures 
of silver,' because they are fitly spoken. Few persons can write 
and speak equally well, or, rather, few excel in both writing and 
speaking. Many of the greatest authors utterly fail when they 
attemi)t to make speeches — and there are orators who lose all 
their power and ^dvacity when they put pen to paper. The 
chief requisite of the speaker is readiness of perception combined 



184 Representative Men. 

with fluency and feeling — the writer needs patience added to 
knowledge. If the speaker presents his subject with grace and 
spirit on the spur of the moment, less will be required of him 
than of the writer who has had time to think and select his lan- 
guage. Not a few speeches that made a sensation when they 
were first spoken have passed into oblivion because they de- 
pended on passing events for their force, and were mere echoes 
of popular oiDiuion. The speeches of Douglas do not consist of 
cant phrases, hackneyed arguments, and anecdotes. He reasons, 
and the understanding is aroused ; he scatters the flowers of 
rhetoric, and the fancy is delighted; he appeals to humanity, 
and the heart throbs fast with emotion. Who is this man so 
original, so delicate, so comprehensive, so eloquent? — he is a 
colored man. Who commands such fascinating language, and in- 
dulges in such fine flights of imagination? — he is an ex-slave. Who 
is he who speaks with the majesty of Sumner, but with more 
fire?— he is a nigger. He sprang out of his chains like Pallas 
from the head of Jupiter, already armed. He entered the arena 
of reform with Garrison and Phillips and Rogers and Gerrit 
Smith, and in debate he was the peer of the strongest men that 
dared to measure lances with him. 

" Sneered at, hissed, mobbed, stoned, assaulted, he stemmed the 
tide and came ofi" conqueror. When it was dangerous for white 
men even to speak the truth on the question of slavery, he did 
not equivocate nor palliate an evil with soft words — he lifted up 
his voice like a trumpet and told the people of their transgres- 
sions. He has lived to see slaves of his color freed from their 
chains and vindicate their manhood, their courage, and their 
patriotism in the field. He has heard the proclamation of free- 
dom to his race on this continent, and has been assured of the 
amendment of liberty by the action of the legislative bodies of 
the several States. 

'' In his great speech at the Academy of Music he hurled a bolt 
at the theological thunderer of Brooklyn Heights. He said, ' I 
do not find fault with Mr. Beecher, though [ do not always agree 
with him. I remember that, not many years ago, he declared 
that if he could abolish slavery on the instant, or, by waiting 
twenty-five years could have it so abolished that its overthrow 



Frederick Douglas. 185 

would wholly redound to the glory of tlie Cbristian Clmrch, he 
would prefer the latter. I presume he was entirely sincere in 
this preference; and yet if I were a Maryland slaveholder, and 
Mr. Beecher were my slave, and I had a rawhide, 1 could take 
this opinion out of him in less than half an hour.' 

''In a later speech delivered at the Cooper Institute, he paid a 
glowing compliment to his friend Tilton, and said that he (Til- 
ton) was the only white man in whose presence he forgot that 
he was a negro. 

" One of the most memorable sayings of Douglas is this, ' One 
with Ood is a majority.'" 

Since the foregoing was published Mr. Douglas has 
held, for a number of years, the post of District Mar- 
shal in the city of Washington, an office worth $10,000 
per annum. He, though nearly seventy years of age, re- 
tains his mental vigor, and has recently written a large 
and interesting vohime, which has been published and 
illustrated in elegant style. The book contains a history 
of his escape from slavery — his experience as a platform 
orator — with his views of the colored people's duty now 
that they " stand free and disenthralled." His hair is 
now white as wool ; in other respects the excellent por- 
trait which accompanies this sketch is a good likeness 
of the celebrated Orator. 



Henry Bergh, 



FOUNDER AND CHAMPION OF THE SOCIETY FOR PREVENTION 
OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 



"A merciful man is merciful to his beast." —Bible. 

I'^.HE subject of this sketch has for many years pleaded, 
in private and in public, the cause of creatures 
without capacity to speak for themselves. That they are 
neglected and cruelly beaten without cause or provoca- 
tion, is a fact patent to all observers. They are the 
slaves of tyrants, who overtask them, punish them 
when they are young, and abandon them to the cold 
and cruel hospitality of the common and the roadside 
when they become old. Thoughtless boys and men 
overburden the horse, and then forget to feed him 
with sufficient oats and hay. They neglect to water 
him, to bed him, to clean liim, and they apply the 
boot and the lash, because he does not pull and run 
with his accustomed strength, speed and spirit. If his 
driver happens to be in a bad temj)er, the dumb beast 
has to suffer a shower of blows. The iron bit is 
jerked furiously in his bleeding mouth; the rawhide 
is plied savagely upon his back, until the blisters 
rise in long lines upon his shivering body ; he is beaten 
over the head with huge sticks and kicked until his 
persecutor becomes too tired to continue his cruel 
treatment. How often an inconsiderate person drives 

(186) 




HENRY BERGH. 



PLATE XIX, 



Henry Bergh. 187 

a horse until the poor animal is drenched in sweat, and 
then ties him to a post and leaves him unblanketed in the 
cold, while he (the driver) halts at a tavern to take his 
grog, toast his feet, and chat wath his neighbors. He 
then mounts his seat, and the liquor poured down his 
throat seems to circulate in the whip he wields over the 
horse. The dumb beast catches cold and becomes rheu- 
matic ; but he must make so many miles an hour or 
suffer the consequences ; he must draw so many bushels 
of produce or endure the penalty of kicks and blows. 

Mr. Bergh has stepped to the front to defend the 
useful animals that render us snch efficient service. 
He has spoken well and written wisely in their behalf. 
He has secured legislation to aid him in his praise- 
worthy endeavors, and in all directions societies have 
been organized to prevent cruelty to the '' good creat- 
ures of God." 

'* A merciful man is merciful to his beast "; a cruel 
man is cruel to his beast ; he is a beast himself, and de- 
serves the punishment he gives his horse. We need a 
Bergh in every town to protect the rights of the horse ; 
horses have rights as well as men and women. They 
have the right to be well fed, well sheltered, well cur- 
ried and well cared for in the furrow and on the road. 
They are good creatures of God, and He created them 
to be serviceable to man, not to be the objects of his 
neglect and abuse. 

AVhen a man's horses and cattle troop about him at 
the sound of his voice, you may be certain he is a kind, 
good-hearted person. You will find he is kind at home, 
kind abroad, and everywhere commended for his hospi- 
tality. 



1 88 Representative Men, 

Per contra, when you see a man whose horses and 
cattle and sheep flee at his presence, you may rest as- 
sured that he is a tyrant to his family ; that he scolds 
his wife, whips his children, and quarrels with his 
neighbors. There are no hypocrites in nature outside 
the pale of humanity. The meek-eyed ox, the inno- 
cent sheep, and the noble steed will not hasten to taste 
salt in the hands of a merciless master. 

How often do we find boys pelting cows with sticks 
and stones, making the speechless animals atone for the 
indolence of their drivers by inci-easing their speed from 
the meadow to the stable. Do these boys ever reflect 
that they, probably, owe to the cows they over-drive 
and beat, the physical strength that enables them to hurl 
the cudgels and stones that urges the gentle animal to an 
unnatural gait? Our new civilization has a heart with 
which it feels, as well as a head with which it thinks, 
and it begins to oj)en its eyes to the cruelty to animals. 
Car-loads of starved and thirsty cattle, sheep and swine 
still point to the barbarism of a darker age ; but law now 
demands that the poor, four-legged prisoners shall be 
fed and watered, and the men monsters who disregard 
this humane law do so at their peril, and, as we advance 
along the paths of progress and intelligence, the eva- 
sion of this law w^ll become more and more difficult. 
With the age of steam came that refinement which 
shrinks at the thought of speed purchased with the 
sweat and blood and life of the spirited race-horse. 
The iron horse, with his lungs of fire, mane of smoke, 
and legs of steam, can travel faster than the swiftest 
steed, and its speed can be increased without pain, 
so that there is less need now than ever before of 



Henry Bergh, 189 

horses with flying feet. Still, "the whole inferior 
creation, groaning and travailing together in pain," 
appeals to man and his Maker in dumb eloquence for 
relief. Even now " the fear of man and the dread of 
man is upon every beast of the earth, and upon ^n^v^ 
fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the 
earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea — for into 
man's hands are they delivered." A wail comes 
up from the woods and prairies, from the lakes and 
rivers and marshes, because of the wanton cruelt}^ of 
man. Birds and deer and other game are rapidly dis- 
appearing before the wasteful footsteps of men, whose 
murderous guns and traps and nets spare nothing that 
ministers to their gluttonous appetites and their cruel 
cupidity. Herds of buffalo are scattered and slain for 
the amusement of some " sport," who never did a noble 
act in his life, and who is not entitled to such a sacri- 
fice on the altar of his vanity and ambition. Prairie 
chickens are caught in nets and carried off to market, to 
fill the purse of some one who does not care on whose 
land he trespasses, or whose rights he invades, so long 
as he can get the market value of the wild fowls God 
designed to be distributed to all and not to be monopo- 
lized by the few. Aside from this unjust and mean 
and cruel monopoly of the fowls of the air and the 
beasts of the field and the injustice which comes of it, 
there is positive and wicked cruelty to the creatures 
themselves. They suffer fright and pain ; many that 
are not wantonly killed are separated from their mates 
and wounded. Parents are slain and their offspring 
starved to death. See how the poor things tremble 
with fear in the presence of man; hear their cry of 



igo Repi'esentative Men. 

pain coming up through the listening air. The 
sound of the gun strikes terror to the heart of the un- 
offending bird. The truant boj, who steals the callow 
brood from the warm, round nest, breaks the heart of 
their mother, and she proclaims her loss with a pathos 
which might move the hardest heart. Flocks of wild 
fowl, entangled in nets spread by up en who care not for 
the season nor the relations of the mother-birds to their 
offspring, flutter and scream in anguish, and appeal in 
vain for the freedom of the unchartered air, which is 
their right. The graceful and beautiful deer, whose 
innocent face should be its protection, is pursued by 
barking hounds and men, who hunt it merely for pas- 
time, and wound it and kill it merely for amusement. 

J^ow, legislators, give us better game laws. A grateful 
constituency of humane men and women will appreciate 
such a service, and God, who notices even the sparrow 
which falls to the ground, will bless you. Do this 
work of mercy now; no time should be lost. Cruel 
men can only be restrained by the force of law. Away 
with the nets that grasp so greedily more than a fair 
share of the winged game of the prairies ; put an im- 
mediate stop to hunting at times of the year when the 
young need the protection of parents. Our advancing 
civilization calls for stricter laws for the protection of 
our game. We can not afford the wanton waste of life 
which marks the age. Cattle and sheep, sent to the 
slaughter, are receiving a little protection ; now strike 
for the welfare of the innocent inhabitants of the 
woods and the waters. E'ature and Scripture are on 
the side of mercy ; interest and principle join in indig- 
nant protest against cruelty to the creatures of God. 



Henry BergJi. 191 

America owes to herself the duty of shielding her 
friends, the birds. Our crops will be consumed with 
worms and insects if we do not spare the birds, the po- 
lice of the air, that destroy the devouring flies and bugs 
and worms so destructive to our harvests. 

The champion of these abused and neglected creat- 
ures was born in ]^ew York in the year 1820. His father, 
Christian Bergh, was a famous shipbuilder. The old 
frigate President^ which was captured in the war of 
1812, was launched from his yard, and so was the Greek 
man-of-war Hellas. Toward the close of Ins father's 
loni; and useful career as a citizen and as a man of af- 
fairs, the subject of this sketch was associated with 
him in business. Mr. Bergh, having enjoyed the ad- 
vantages of education and culture, and having resources 
at his command, determined to '^ see the world," and he 
devoted several years to travel in Europe and in Amer- 
ica, during which time he rendered valuable service 
to the General Government. In 1861 he was appointed 
Secretary of Legation to Eussia by President Lincoln, and 
afterward Consul at St. Petersburgh, remaining there 
until 1864, when ill-health forced him to resign his po- 
sition. Before he left Eussia, the Czar showed him 
special favor by tendering him the use of the royal 
yacht with which to visit the fortress of Cronstadt — 
Mr. Bergh having only requested permission to see 
that fortress. Soon after his return to America, in 
1865, he mapped out the plan for the formation of the 
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This 
organization has flourished in the teeth of savage and 
hateful hostility, and has been a source of relief to 
beasts of burden that were overworked, underfed and 



192 Representative Men. 

cruelly beaten by intemperate and heartless men. Cat- 
tle, sheep, swine and other animals used as food, now have 
better care while in transportation. A dozen years ago 
he said, '' State after State is adopting our laws and 
seal, and when I have succeeded in planting a kindred 
Society in every State of the Union, I may be pardoned 
for believing that I have not lived in vain." The high- 
est expectations of Mr. Bergh have been realized. So- 
cieties have sprung up in all quarters, agents are em- 
ployed everywhere, and the strong bit of the law is put 
in the jaws of brutal men. The services of Mr. Bergh 
as a lecturer are demanded in colleges and lyceums; 
tracts on the question of cruelty to " the poor, dumb 
creatures" are scattered broadcast over the continent; 
and the press, with scarcely an exception, defends and 
applauds the noble work of the Society he founded. 

His portrait has the indefinable look of a gentlemaan, 
in which benevolence has the ascendency over the lower 
and baser faculties. The head is high in the region of 
the moral and intellectual oiganization. His face is 
serious, thoughtful, sympathetic, and shows an earnest- 
ness that will not yield to trifling, and a will-power that 
overcomes obstacles that would appall an ordinary man. 
The poise of the head and the attitude of the body dis- 
play a spirit of self-control that would be undisturbed 
by his evironments, whether they were flattering or 
threatening. Naturally nervous and sensitive, he has 
disciplined his mind so that he can conquer himself — an 
achievement to be proud of, for " he who controls his 
own spirit is mightier than he who taketh a city." 

When Mr. Bergh began his great work, there were 
no laws in the United States for the protection of ani- 



Henry Bergh. 193 

mals from assault; now 36 States and Territories lift 
the sliield of law for their protection, and linmane asso- 
ciations are enforcing the law with vigor and success. 
The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children 
seems to have been suggested by Mr. Bergh's Society, 
and to have grown out of it. When just and tender 
sentiments crystallize into statutes for the benefit of the 
brute creation, we may be sure that helpless humanity 
will also find shelter under the charitable wings of an 
advanced Christian civilization. When Mr. Bei-gh 
seized the cruel evil of the abuse of speechless brutes 
by the throat, at once there came up, as from the pit of 
perdition, a chorus of malicious criticism and misrepre- 
sentation from the press and from the bar, and he had 
to carry his banner through storms of ridicule and 
abuse, invective, sarcasm, and persecution ; but he knew 
that his patent-right of protection came from Heaven, 
bearing the seal of truth and the signature of mercy. 
With a patriotic, humane, and martyr spirit, he stood in 
the front of the great moral agency whose influence at 
the present day reaches beyond geographical limitations. 
A man of education and refinement, he relinquished 
the ease and luxurious indulgences which his wealth 
could afford, and became the butt of laughter and 
scorn, that he might save the dumb beast from harsh, 
cowardly, and brutal cruelty. He was bullied by coarse 
lawyers in courts of justice ; he w^as Ignoi'ed by the do- 
nothings and social tramps, as a fanatic in pursuit of 
notoriety ; but he kept on '^ the even tenor of his way," 
working bravely in the face of opposition and perse- 
cution. 

Mr. Bergh can manage his own cases in court, and 
9 



194 Representative Men. 

he does so frequently with marked efficiency. On one 
occasion, being called to task for his interference in 
court, he exclaimed: "I stand here as an humble de- 
fender of the much-injured brute creation. I am here 
as an advocate for the people ! " To a superintendent 
of the police he wrote, on deep provocation : " I claim 
a right, not only to the assistance of your officers, but 
also especially to exemption from contempt and insult." 
He also said, at another time : " Two or three years of 
ridicule and abuse have thickened the epidermis of my 
sensibilities, and I have acquired the habit of doing the 
things I think right, regardless of public clamor." 
When he found himself strons^ enouo-h, and the mists 
of misunderstanding had lifted, he began a brave and 
zealous crusade against cock-fighters, dog-fighters, rat- 
baiters, and pigeon slaughterers, whenever they pur- 
sued their cruel sports within his reach. What a great 
service he rendered to the community and to humanity 
by his assaults on the swill-milk traffic ! Now and then 
a wealthy resident did put on airs of offended dignity 
because he was compelled to blanket his clipped horses 
in cold weather. Here and there, a horseman became 
furious because he was forced to take from the mouths 
of his steeds the bit-guard barbed with spikes. He has 
been accused of being cruel to human beings in his zeal to 
protect animals ; but this charge will not stand the test 
of analysis. In 1874, Mr. .Bergh rescued two little 
girls from inhuman women — most notably the shock- 
ino;lv treated little '^Mary Ellen." This led to the 
founding of a " Society for Prevention of Cruelty to 
Children." 

A Frenchman, Louis Bonard, who came to this 



Henry Bergh. 195 

co^mtry many years ago, and accumulated a fortune, 
bequeathed his entire estate, valued at $150,000, to Mr. 
Bergh's Society. " Wills, aggregating half a million 
dollars in bequests, have been drawn by philanthropic 
men still living, in favor of the society." 

C. C. Buel, in SGribner's Monthly of April, 1879, 
gives the following graphic sketch of Mr. Bergh : 

His commanding stature of six feet is magnified by bis erect 
and dignified bearing. A decisive band grasps a cane strong 
enougb to lean upon, and competent to be a defense, witbout 
looking like a standing menace. Wben tbis cane, or even bis 
finger, is raised in warning, tbe cruel driver is quick to under- 
stand and beed tbe gesture. On tbe crowded streets be walks 
with a slow, sligbtl}^ swinging pace, peculiar to bimself. Ap- 
parently preoccupied, be is yet observant of everytbbig about 
bim, and mechanically notes the condition from bead to hoof of 
every passing horse. Everyborly looks into the long, solemn, 
finely-chiseled, and bronzed face, wearing an expression of firm- 
ness and benevolence. Brown locks fringe a broad and rounded 
forehead. Eyes between blue and hazel, ligbted by intellectual 
fires, are equally ready to dart authority or show compas-ion. 
There is energy of character in a long nose of tbe purest Greek 
type; melancholy in a mouth rendered doubly grave by deep 
lines, thin lips, and a sparse, drooping mustache; and determi- 
nation in a square chin of leonine strength. Tbe head, evenly 
poised, is set on a stout neck, rooted to broad shoulders. In 
plainness, gravity, and good taste, individuality and unassuming 
and self-possessed dignity, bis personality is li compromise be- 
tween a Quaker and a French nobleman, whose Hfe and thougbt^ 
no less than long descent, are his title to nobility. 



Samuel R. W'ells, 

LATE PUBLISHER OF THE "PHRENOLOGICAL JOURNAL. 



" Render an honest and a perfect man, 
Commands all light, all influence, all fate, 
Nothing to him falls early, or too late. 
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill 
Our fatal shadows, that walk by us still." 

— Fletcher. 

THE subject of this sketch was a modest teacher^ 
self-respecting, industrious, evenly poised, and un- 
yielding in hi^ convictions. His life was clean, and his 
raeniory is sweet as the odor of flowers. He had faith 
in the prophecy of the "good time coming," and he 
exerted the ntmost of his endeavors to hasten its ap- 
proach. He was a progressive man, and put his shoul- 
der to the wheel of the car, to help it out of the 
hindering ruts of conservatism. He was an advocate 
of the gospel of physical health, and of a higher and 
purer development of moral and intellectual force. In 
a certain sense, he was an iconoclast, but, instead of 
breaking our images with the hammer of Thor, he 
turned our attention to living specimens of God-like 
humanity, and sought to remove the subjects of our 
idolatrous devotion, while we were gazing with wonder 
and admiration upon the best models of physical, 
spiritual and intellectual manhood. The reader must 
not infer that Mr. Wells taught man-worship, although 
he committed himself to the fact that there is nothing 
(196) 




SAMUEL K. WELLS. 



PLATE XX. 



Samuel R. Wells. 197 

on earth so sacred as a liuman being — the masterpiece 
of the Creators workmanship, into which He breathed 
a livino^ and immortal sonl from His own livino^ and 
immortal soul. For this human existence, He made 
the earth bear abundantly, and the heavens glow with 
beauty. He made light for the eye, sound for the ear, 
food for the taste, odors for the sense of smell, and 
matter of infinite varieties for him to manipulate for 
his own welfare. Mr. Wells, without assuming the 
province of superiority, became a teacher of men in 
the highest sense of an instructor. He endeavored to 
show those who were willing to be taught, that they 
were ''fearfully and wonderfully" formed; that their 
souls and their bodies should be saved ; the former 
from meanness, selfishness, littleness, and all de- 
grees of transgression against law ; the latter from 
enslaving habits, from devouring passions and appe- 
tites, and from premature decay and death. He battled 
bravely against the groveUing sentiment, that to fill the 
money-sack and the earcliac sac were the chief ends of 
liuman existence. It is a source of great gratification 
to the writer, as it must be to the reader, to know that 
Mr. "Wells always sided with the oppressed, and stood 
on the weaker side, that being nearest to God and hu- 
manity. Although modest and unpretentious, he was 
brave, and carried his banner where the fight was thick- 
est. In some respects he was like his friend and co- 
worker, Horace Greeley : he could not hear of a case of 
human suffering without a deep feeling of sympathy, 
and it was his habit to put himself to inconvenience, to 
sacrifice his ease and give his money to aid the needy, 
and if it was not always with the most careful dis- 



198 Representative Men. 

crimination, his error was on the side of charity, which 
he preferred to exercise rather than the critical scrutiny 
that might withhold help from the worthy. He did 
not believe that T^ature reserved the finest clay to be 
formed into porcelain vases of aristocratic humanity, 
while the poorer qualities were kept for the coarse 
crockery of the common people, but that all were en- 
dowed with the blessings of life and liberty, and tha 
right to pursue health and happiness. His heart-pledge 
to the race, like Penn's treaty with the Indians, was 
never sworn to, and never broken. 

In stature, Mr. Wells was above the common height, 
symmetrical in form and graceful in manner. He 
spoke in gentle tones, and was polite and winning in 
his address. His hair was dark and plentiful ; his beard 
full ; his forehead broad and high — in a sentence, he 
had the look of a refined and cultivated gentleman. I 
will add to this sketch the following article copied 
from the Pkrenological Journal of June, 1875 : 

Samuel R. Wells was born in West Hartford. Ct., April 4, 1820. 
While a mere lad his father removed his family to the then ahnost 
unbroken wil lerne^s of North west New York, and settled on a 
farm on the shore of Lake Ontario, at a place known as Little 
Sodus Bay, now called Fairhaven. That wilderness home, now 
a smiling farm, gently sloping to the Bay and the Lake, is as cheer- 
ful and pleasant as it was then gloomy and lonely. Here, in this 
out-of-the-way place, he spent his boyhood. Thus assisting to 
clear the land, to till the soil, shooting and trapping the a imals 
in the surrounding fores' s, and angling in the Bay, or sailing en 
the Lake, he had a dreamy sense of something higher anJ differ- 
ent than farm-life. He longed for light and knowledge, and felt 
that in that rude, sequestered mode of life, he could never rise 
above its level. The lo3al school, of course, was poor, and of 
short duration each year. 



Samuel R. Wells. 199 

His father determined that the boy should have a trade, and 
did not — as most fathers do not — stop to consult whether the 
tastes and talents of the boy ran in that direction or not. He 
was accordingly apprenticed to a tanner and currier in the 
neighborhood, and faithfully served his time with credit and 
success. Not satisfied with what he could learn of that business 
In that vicinity, he went East, working in the best shops, paying 
better workmen than himself for instruction, until he stood high- 
est in the business, with the best wages the trade afforded. Be- 
ing industrious, temperate and personally popular, he could get 
the best work and any favors the proprietors could give. 

He laid up a few hundred dollars with the view to entering 
the medical department of Yale College. Thus working and 
reading medicine, he was making good j)rogress in his profes- 
sional eflfbrts. He heard that the Fowler Brothers, phrenolo- 
gists, were in- Boston, delivering a course of lectures, and left 
Portland, Me., with the design of listening to those lectures, and 
picking up what he might of the new science, in which he had 
previously become interested. Attending these lectures and ex- 
aminations, he was deeply impressed with the subject, and his 
mind became so absorbed with Phrenology, that he determined 
to be a student of the Fowlers, and joined them for that purpose 
in their professional rambling?, studying the theory, listening to 
their deUneations, and taking daily lessons in that department. 
Singular as it may now seem, when he was but a boy, his first 
ideas of Phrenology were obtained in 1836, from a chart he saw 
at Ithaca, N. Y,, which had been marked in 1835 by Charlotte 
Fowler, his future wife. From that moment he sought books 
and every facility for learning all he could of the subject. 

In 1844 he formed a copartnership with the Messrs. Fowler^ 
and entered their office, which was already established in Nas- 
sau Street, New York. He commenced in earnest to organize 
the business of publication, and to take charge of the professional 
department of the oflice, during the absence of the Fowlers on 
lecturing tours. The Phrenological Journal^ now so widely 
known as the able exponent of Phrenogical Science, had been 
established by 0. S. & L. N. Fowler, about six years before. The 



200 Representative Men. 

Fowlers wrote the leading articles, but the conduct of its publi- 
cation and the proper presentation of it to the public, as well as 
the conduct of the book-publishing department, fell to Mr. Wells' 
lot, and from that day to the present the names of Fowler and 
Wells, through their publications, have become known as far as 
the English language is sjDoken. 

The same year he was married to Miss Charlotte Fowler, sister 
of the Messrs. Fowler. She had been identified with the estab- 
lishment from before the start of the Journal^ and ever since she 
has been connected with the office, and daily given her time and 
thought to the cause. From the publication of one or two books, 
the catalogue of phrenological publications has now become ex- 
tensive. A large museum of sj)ecimens has been accumulated 
of skulls, busts, casts and portraits of eminent statesmen, schol- 
ars and benefactors, as well as those of noted maniacs, idiots and 
criminals, all constituting one of the most interesting collections, 
historical and scientific, that can anywhere be found. This, of 
course, required time, labor and much pecuniary expenditure. 

In 1855 Mr. 0. S. Fowler retired from the firm, and in 1860 
Mr. Wells and his remaining partner, Mr, L. N. Fowler, having 
made a tour of the United States and the British Provinces, can- 
vassing all important places and delivering a course of lectures 
in each, started for an extended lecturing tour through England, 
Scotland and Ireland, visiting all the large places in the " Three 
Kingdoms," meeting with a flattering reception and satisfactory 
success — a success, indeed, which has led Mr. Fowler to remain 
in England to the present time. 

On his return, in 1862, to the United States, Mr. Wells applied 
himself to giving the results of his experience to the world. 
This he has done, not only through the columns of the Phreno- 
logical Journal^ but in several illustrated works, the most prom- 
inent of which is "New Physiognomy, or Signs of Character," 
containing more than a thousand engravings, and placing what 
is known of Physiognomy before the world. " How to Read 
Character," and "Wedlock, or, The Right Relation of the 
Sexes," may also be mentioned. 

Being the sole proprietor of the phrenological establishment, 



Samuel R. Wells. 201 

•whicli lias long been known as one of the "curiosity shops" of 
Broadway, his labors were necessarily onerous, but, having sur- 
rounded himself with experienced co-workers, and being strictly 
temperate in all things, he was able to perform his duties with 
ease and vigor. In all his publications, mental culture, temper- 
ance, health-reform and general progress are marked character- 
istics ; and through the silent working of the leaven of those 
publications, men and women in every department of society, 
not of the East alone, but in the great West and South, have 
been helped to a better appreciation of life's purposes and privi- 
leges. 

By the judicious conduct of the business, Mr. "Wells earned a 
great deal of money; but loving the cause in which he was en- 
gaged, namely, the improvement of the human race in mind and 
body by the promulgation of the doctrines of Phrenology, Phys- 
iology, Temperance and Hygienic Reform, and having no chil- 
dren of his own to provide for, he devoted his earnings largely 
to the furtherance of the views he held so dear. 

Added to Mr. Wells' desire for knowledge, he had a decided 
religious tendency; his large Veneration aiding to make him 
devotional in sentiment and polite and modest in his bearing. 
He was liberal and sympathetic, finding it extremely difficult 
to say "no" when want asked for aid. If a man, woman or 
boy, especially the last, needed assistance or wanted work, it re- 
quired no other argument to induce Mr. Wells to make a place 
in his own business, or seek a situation for him or her elsewhere. 

During the excitement and exposure incident to the removal 
of the business office in the spring of 1875, Mr. Wells contracted 
a cold, which, added to his exhaustion, induced pneumonia, and 
he took to his bed April 2d, and in spite of the best treatment 
and nursing, died on the morning of April 13th, aged 55 years 
and 9 days. 

He did not live in vain. He aided in the grand ef- 
fort to make the world better. The magazine with 
which he was associated touched chords that vibrated 
across the continent. Men maj die, but thought is im- 
9* 



202 Representative Men. 

mortal ; and when ideas are crytallized into institntions 
for the benefit of mankind, they insure for their authors 
fame that is not bounded by the horizon. Man is 
greater than his work. When the greatest astronomer 
was looking through his telescope, he was vaster and 
brighter than any star he saw in the heavens. Mr. 
Wells, though not a great man, was manly, noble and 
generous, and gifted with a sound, clear intellect and 
a magnanimous heart. 




KEV. DE. E. S. POKTEK. 



PLATE XXI, 



Elbert S. Porter, 

PREACHER, EDITOR, AND MAN OF AFFAIRS. 



" With care, true eloquence shall teach, 
And to just idioms fix our doubtful speech, 
That from our writers distant realms may know 
The thanks we to our monarchs owe." 

— Priob. 

■pEV. ELBERT S. POETEE, D.D., was born in the 
XL town of Hillsboro, JSTew Jersey, October 23d, 
1820. After studies at a select school at Ovid, New 
York, where he was sent at six years of age, and at a 
school in the city of JSTew York, kept by the father of 
the famous lawyer, the late James T. Brady, he went 
into a country store at Millstone, for one year. He 
then went to the Academy at Somerville, New Jersey, 
where he remained three years. While under sixteen 
years of age, he entered the sophomore class of Prince- 
ton College, graduating there three years later. He 
studied law for a short time, but was not admitted to 
the bar. In 1842 he graduated in theology at the 
Theological Seminary at New Brunswick. In the same 
year he was licensed by the Classis of New Brunswick, 
and was soon after installed at Chatham, Columbia 
County, New York, as pastor of a missionary congre- 
gation. He remained there seven years, and built up 
a flourishing church. He next accepted a call to his 
present church, then known as the First Eeformed 
Dutch Church, in Williamsburgh, where he has labored 

(203) 



204 Representative Men. 

for a third of a century. Dr. Porter received his 
degree of D.D. from Rutgers College, New Brunswick, 
in 1854. For sixteen years he was the editor of the 
Christian Intelligencer^ the accredited organ of the 
Reformed denomination. 

Besides his editorial writings he has published a 
" History of the Reformed Dutch Church in the United 
States," the " Pastor's Guide," and other works, and 
occasional seiTnons. He is also the author of some of 
the most popular and spirited hymns in our religious 
song-books. He is a progressive man, always abreast 
with the age. His scholarly attainments and sesthetic 
tastes, controlled by a logical mind and tinged with a 
poetic fancy, lead him to the use of apt imagery in 
illustrating his discourses, which are noted for com- 
pact and terse speech, sound and elaborate argument, 
fused in the fire of earnest zeal and devotion. From 
Patten's " Lives of the Clergy of iTew York" we copy 
the following : 

Dr. Porter was never found wanting in any place that duty 
placed him ; and in the Church, and everywhere, he is one of 
those who naturally take the position of leader and example to 
other men. He is not demonstrative or presumptuous, but quiet, 
unobtrusive and modest; agreeable, cordial and frank in his 
manners. 

When work is to be done, when cool, practical judgment is 
wanted, when a champion and a hero is required, then he comes 
to the front with his strong nerve, his willing mind and hands, 
and his brave and hopeful heart. 

Dr. Porter is of medium stature, has brown hair and 
hazel eyes, and his face indicates thought and culture. 
He speaks with distinctness and deliberation, now and 



Elbert S. Porter. 205 

then breaking out with eloquent emphasis, giving elec- 
tric expression to his thought and feeling. 

Dr. Porter has been diligent in his ministerial work, 
and yet not negligent of public affairs. During the 
war for the Union, he was engaged in aiding, by his 
frequent addresses in city and country, the formation 
of two regiments. As chaplain of the 47th Regiment 
of Brooklyn, N.Y., he was of considerable practical ad- 

vantao-e to the officeis and men. He has travelled over 



the Eastern, Middle and Western States in the interest 

of some of our national societies, and his appeals in 
their behalf were eminently successful. One of his 
proudest triumphs was at Pittsburgh, Pa., where he 
addressed the American Branch of the Evangelical 
Alliance on Religion in Common-School Education. 
His address on those subjects, either in whole or in 
part, was copied in many of the religious and secular 
papers. In 1879 he was sent as a delegate of the H. S. 
Branch to the World's Evangelical Alliance, which met 
at Basle, Switzerland. He availed himself of the op- 
portunity of passing some months in foreign travel and 
observation, and while abroad wrote a number of 
descriptive letters to several journals. On his return 
he gave six lectures on " Peoples and Places," which 
were heard by cultivated and delighted audiences. 
Their publication has been repeatedly called for, but 
Dr. Porter's time is taxed in many ways, and he is 
perhaps too fastidious in judgment on his own produc- 
tions to send to press what he can not carefully revise. 
For twenty-eight years he has been a farmer, his 
country home being in the old village of Claverack, 
Columbia County, N. Y. There his sixty acres, well 



3o6 Representative Men, 

cultivated, reflect credit on his industry, and show 
" what he knows about farming." His church and 
congregation embrace a number of persons of wealth 
and influence, and some of national renown in the 
world of art and letters. 

A few years ago. Dr. Porter appeared to be im- 
pressed with the idea that some of the members of his 
church and congregation desired a new man in the 
pulpit. Spurred on by the thought, he offered his 
resignation. It was on a Sunday forenoon, and in the 
presence of a congregation that filled the body of the 
church and the galleries, that he, with moist eyes and 
faltering speech, attempted to say farewell, but break- 
ing down in the effort, hastily retreated from the pul- 
pit to the church pai'lors. Immediately a member of 
the church arose, and made a touching appeal, which 
was followed by a resolution (offered by a member of 
the congregation) tbat the resignation of Dr. Porter 
would be a calamity to the church, and that he be re- 
quested to recall it. In support of the resolution, the 
writer, who offered it, said, in substance : " We can not 
spare the services of Dr. Porter. It will be difficult to 
find a pastor w^ho can fill the space made vacant by his 
retirement. Few ministers are endowed with his gifts or 
graced with his scholarly attainments, and none can take 
his place in the heart of our hearts. He has baptized our 
children, here at this sacred shrine ; he has prayed at 
the bedside of the sick ; and he has assisted at the 
burial service of our dear ones who have ' gone before.' 
For more than a quarter of a century he has been a 
teacher in this church, and his influence, like light in the 
atmosphere, has penetrated this community and extended 



Elbert S. Porter. 207 

far beyond. We can not afford to accept his resignation. 
Tiie Doctor is in the prime of his power. As a speaker 
and writer, he is known near and afar, and no new- 
comer can have his knowledge of our peculiarities and 
necessities. Could we think without regret of another 
taking his place at the baptismal font, at the marriage 
altar, at the couch of the sick ? Is he not a kind friend 
and a good neighbor ? Does he not pour oil upon the 
troubled waters of our mishaps and misadventures, and 
is he not an earnest and faithful preacher of the 
G ospel ? " 

At the close of the speech, the resolution was put, 
and carried with great enthusiasm. The next evening, 
the floating debt of the church, which was a fly in the 
amber of his happiness, was met by generous subscri- 
bers, and promptly paid when due. The Doctor still 
retains his pastorate and the aflfectionate esteem of his 
people. 



Charles Force Deems, 

INDEPENDExNT PREACHER AND TEACHER. 



"I venerate the man whose heart is warm, 
Whose hands arc pure, whose doctrines and whose life, 
Coincident eii:hibit lucid proof 
That he is honest in the sacred cause." — Cowper. 

T) EY. DK. DEEMS was born in the city of Balti- 
Xt more, December 4, 1820. Hts graduated at Dick- 
inson College, Pennsylvania, in 1839. In his twentieth 
year he was made General Agent of the American Bi- 
ble Society, and chose N'orth Carolina as his Held of la- 
bor. He was afterward appointed Adjunct Professor 
to the chair of Logic and P-hetoric in the University of 
North Carolina, in which position he remained iive 
years, when he accepted the chair of Natural Science in 
Kandolph Macon College, Virginia, where he remained 
one year. Keturning to North Carolina, he was stationed 
at New Berne, and while there was elected delegate to 
the General Conference held at St. Louis, during the 
session of which he was elected President of the Greens- 
boro Female College in North Carolina, an institution 
of which he had charge for five years. In 1 854 he again 
returned to the regular work of the ministry. After 
preaching at Goldsboro and Wilmington, he was re- 
elected to the General Conference, where he was chosen 
President of the Centenary College of Louisiana. 

(208) 




CHAKLES FORCE DEEMS. 



PLATE XXII. 



Charles Force Deems. 209 

In December, 1865, Dr. Deems removed to tbe city 
of ISTew York, where he established The WatoJiman^ a 
rehgious and Hterary weekly, which, not succeeding ac- 
cording to his expectation, he left at the close of a year. 
In July, 1866, he began to preach in the chapel of the 
University of this city, and his congregation soon crys- 
tallized into a new society and became known as " The 
Church of the Strangers." In 1870, through the liber- 
ality of the famous railroad king. Commodore Yander- 
bilt, the congregation were enabled to purchase the 
property belonging to the Mercer Street Presbyterian 
Church. Commodore Yanderbilt generously gave fifty 
thousand dollars for that purpose. Thus the man whose 
cars bring the largest number of strangers into the city 
has contributed the largest sum of money to provide 
them with a place of worship, and the church is as un- 
sectarian as the trains that bring the passengers to his 
depot. The lessons taught in that church have no par- 
ticular reference to creeds, and there is no ecclesiastical 
link uniting it to any sect. Persons of different de- 
nominations meet and mingle there at a common altar. 
There the Methodists are considered good pioneers, and 
are expected to go forth with torch and trumpet and 
drive the demons of vice and sin from their jurisdic- 
tion. The Baptists, being fond of wate'r, are recog- 
nized as the royal navy to sail out upon the sea of 
adventure and sink the monsters of sin so deep under 
the waves of oblivion that they can never be resuscita- 
ted. There the Presbyterians are commissioned to 
purify their associations in the world and in the church. 
The Episcopalians are exhorted to avoid error in the 
employment of their infl-uence. The Unitarians, who 



210 Representative Men. 

believe in good works, are called upon to show their 
faith by their works and their works by their faith ; 
and the Universalists, who believe not in a hell here- 
after, are invited to aid those who do, in putting out 
the fires of a present one, kindled in ten thousand dens 
of shame and sin. In reality, while there are regular 
attendants at the Church of the Strangers, it may 
be paid, with emphasis, that Dr. Deems preaches to a 
scattered congregation of all denominations, for his 
hearers are brought from all points of the compass, 
from every part of the country, and represent every 
phase of theological opinion. 

The dedicatory services of his substantial church 
were held there on the 2d and also on the 9th of Octo- 
ber, 1870, and were attended by large and deeply in- 
terested audiences. Dr. Deems received his degree of 
D.D. from Randolph Macon College, when he was only 
thirty-tvvo years of age. He is the author of more than 
a dozen volumes of different works, among which may 
be mentioned ''The Home Altar," "What I^ow," 
" Annals of Southern Methodism," and a recent work 
entitled the "Life of Jesus." What we have written 
proves that he is an untiring and vigorous worker. In 
Patten's " Lives of the Clergy," we find the following 
statement in relation to Dr. Deems : 

He is impassioned even in argument, and there is in all that he 
writes and says the glow of earnest and sincere feeling. In his 
preaching there is a display of the finest powers of the natural 
orator and thorough scholar. His thoughts are rapid and are 
all aglow with sentiment and emotion, while they have a posi- 
tiveness and interest which can only be imparted by extensive 
learning. Dr. Deems enjoyed great popularity at the South, and 
was esteemed one of the foremost theologians and public men in 
the Methodist Church. 



Charles Force Deems. 211 

He is of medium heiglit, rather slender, yet compact 
of build. His complexion is fair, his eyes are of a gray- 
ish blue, and his forehead broad and high. lie has a 
predominance of the impulsive and intellectual temper- 
ament. He has fine social qualities and remarkable 
conversational gifts ; he is always a welcome guest, and 
wields great influence over those with whom he asso- 
ciates. He is doing a great and a good work in this 
swarming hive of civilization. Neither the stranger 
nor the citizen will ever fail to find in the " Church of 
the Strangers" a kind welcome to a pleasant place of 
worship, where the truth is taught without sectarian 
bias, and by a very able, sincere and scholarly teacher. 
This sanctuary of free religion will be a monument 
to the memory of generous enterprise, when vast depots 
and bronze statues have crumbled to dust. Money, 
wisely expended and discreetly used for the benefit 
of others, is capital deposited in a bank that never 
fails, and whose dividends are never affected by the 
*' rise and fall of stocks in the market of Mammon." 
" I was a stranger and ye took me in ; I was sick and 
in prison and ye visited me," is a motto fit for the 
church presided over by Dr. Deems. 



RuFus Choate, 



LAWYER AND ORATOR, 



"Wilh prospects "bright, upon the world he came, 
Pure love of virtue, strong desire of fame ; 
Men watched the way his lofty mind would take, 
And all foretold the progress he would make." 

RUFUS CHOATE was the Boanerges of the Ameri- 
can Bar. There was thunder in his eloquence, and 
lightning in his thunder. When he spoke, his black 
eyes emitted sparks of electricity, and his hair, which 
never could be coaxed, by comb or brush, to lie down 
peacefully upon his heated brain, stood erect, as though 
his head were an electric battery and each individual 
tube charged with the subtle fluid. To say that he was 
excited when speaking at the bar or on the platform, is 
using language too mild to express the fact. He was 
furious. His swarthy face, colored by the rush of 
blood, gave him the appearance of an Indian in a 
citizen's full-dress. His manner indicated that he was 
about to entertain an audience with a savage war-dance 
and ringing yell. The writer saw him in Fanueil Hall, 
walk to and fro on the stage, swinging his arms back- 
wards and forwards as though he intended to take a 
step, a hop, and then a leap into the auditorium. In 
the meantime, he made a jump into the middle of his 
subject, and rattled away as though he was urged on 
and on by some invisible steam-engine concealed under 

(212) 




RUFUS CnOATE. 



PLATE XXII 



Rufus Choate. 213 

his coat, which, in moments of more than ordinary ex- 
citement, was sometimes torn from the collar to the 
waist. The reader, who may never have witnessed 
Mr. Choate under the high pressure of his heart and 
thought power, may charge me with exaggeration ; but 
there are thousands of persons living who know that 
I do not overstate nor overcolor the manner of the 
marvelous orator. 

His auditors looked at him with amazement and ad- 
miration. He had only to draw the slides of his fancy, 
to exhibit wonderful images of illustration, and show 
pictures of the past and the present, that riveted their 
gaze and kindled their astonishment. He had such a 
retentive memory, such varied learning, such affluence 
of language, such an eccentric style, such luminous 
eloquence, and such an overflow of magnetism, he was 
an irresistible speaker and orator. Often, when he 
finished a period in his most energetic and electric way, 
the listener would think of looking up to see if the 
iiery bolt, launched from his lips, had not pierced the 
ceiling. It was difficult, if not impossible, to report 
his speeches verbatim et literatim et pionctuatem. 
They were punctuated with emphasis, which answered 
the purpose of colons and commas, dashes and periods. 
Who can report a thunder-storm? — the moaning wind, 
the pattering rain, the vivid flashes of Are, the crash- 
ing of the thunder? He was not, however, confined to 
any limit or style of speech, and certainly was not always 
a " tempest talking " to humanity. He could " hew out 
a Colossus from a rock, or carve heads on cherry- 
stones." When he had to do important work that re- 
quired culture, skill, and genius in the courts or within 



214 Representative Mejt. 

the college walls, where a knowledge of letters and 
the classics was required, he could quote from Ilesiod, 
Homer, Yirgil, Shakespeare, and Milton. His vivid 
imagination and powerful memory, uniting in one cur- 
rent, flowed on 

"Like to the Pontic sea, 
Whose current and compulsive course 
Never feels retiring ebb, but keeps right on 
To the Propontic and the Hellespont." 

There were times, and they were not infrequent, 
when his emotional nature "got the better" of his 
judgment. After making great efforts at the bar or on 
the rostrum, he sometimes became the victim of un- 
rest. His nervous system was like an instrument of 
music with loosened strings, and he could not sleep 
until Nature restored his exhausted energies, tuned the 
lax chords with health, and made his heart beat in har- 
mony with her laws. 

But he was fond of fame and money, and deter- 
mined to keep up his reputation and his revenue, and 
his services were generally available when clients called 
upon him. He was not, however, a mercenary man, 
for, notwithstanding his great and profitable practice, 
he left only a moderate fortune when he died. His 
speeches were made to be heard, rather than to be read. 
Perhaps I ought to except a few of his carefully writ- 
ten addresses, which nobody could read but himself, 
for his manuscript detied the skill of the printer, and 
he had to interpret it. 

Mr. Choate was dark-faced, thin and sickly-looking ; 
he seemed to have been the victim of overstudy and 
overwork, and the smoke of the lamp had stained his 



Rufus C ho ate. 215 

features. He had keen black ejes, that looked at a 
case and through it at a glance. His hair was black, 
abundant, and unkempt. It is due in part to the unre- 
portable style of his eloquence, aud the wretched con- 
dition of his manuscript, that we have so little of his 
work as a scholar and lawyer left for our entertainment 
and instruction. 

This great orator, lawyer and scholar was bom at 
Essex, Mass., October 1st, 1Y99 ; and died in Halifax, 
Nova Scotia, July 13th, 1859. He graduated at Dart- 
mouth College in 1819, where he was a tutor for one 
year ; then he read law, and in 1824: commenced the 
practice of his profession, first at Dan vers, Mass., and 
afterward at Salem, Mass. In 1825 he was elected 
representative in the Massachusetts Legislature, and, two 
years later. State Senator, and in 1832 a representative 
in Congress. A re-election was offered, but he declined 
it, and took up his residence in Boston, where he practised 
law, and soon achieved great distinction as an advocate, 
rising to the highest rank in his profession, being rec- 
ognized inside and outside the bar as an acute lawyer, 
and a most eloquent interpreter of law. 

In 184:1 he was elected United States Senator, to fill 
the unexpired term of Daniel Webster. In the Senate 
he distinguished himself more by his eloquence than by 
his statesmanship ; indeed, he was always a better 
pleader than politician. In 1853 he was Attorney- 
General of the State, and afterward, to the close of 
his life, the foremost lawyer in New England. He was 
on his way to Europe in the pursuit of health when he 
died. Among his best utterances, and those on which 
his reputation chiefly rests, are his eulogy upon Presi- 



2i6 Representative Men. 

dent Harrison ; an address on the landing of the Pil- 
grim Fathers ; a eulogy upon Daniel Webster ; an ad- 
dress on the dedication of the Peabody Institute ; an 
oration before the Young Men's Club of Boston ; two 
addresses before the Law School of Cambridge, and two 
lectures before the Boston Mercantile Library Associ- 
ation. 

The " rousing " eloquence, felicitous quotation, charm- 
ins: diction, and mao:netic unction of Choate did not 
always save him from the severe and scathing criticism 
of Wendell Phillips and others. After complimenting 
Otis at a public meeting in the " old cradle of liberty," 
Phillips said : '' Compared with the calm grace and 
dignity of Otis, the thought of which came rushing 
back, he struck me like a monkey in convulsions. 
Alas, I said, if the party (the Whig party) which has 
owned Massachusetts so long, which spoke to me as a 
boy through the lips of Quincy, Sullivan, and Webster, 
has sunk down to the miserable sophistry of this 
mountebank ; and I felt proud of the city of my birth 
as I looked over the murmuring multitude beneath me, 
on whom his spasmodic chatter fell like a wet blanket. 
He did not dare to touch a second time on the Fugi- 
tive Slave Bill. He tried it once with his doctrine of 
^ infamous ethics,' and the men were as silent as the 
pillars around them. Ah, thought I, we have been 
here a little too often, and if we have not impressed 
the seal of our sentiments very deeply on the people, 
they have at least learned that immediate emancipation, 
though possibly it be a dream, is not ' infamous ethics,' 
and that such doctrine, the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, and the Sermon on the Mount, need more than 



Rufics Choate. 217 

the flashy rhetoric of a Webster retainer to tear them 
asunder." Choate awoke the wrong man when he 
threw stones at Phillips; and, besides, he (Choate) was 
the attorney of King Cotton, the apologist of slavery ; 
and although backed by the expounder, or, as some one 
called him, the "ten-pounder,'- of the Constitution, 
the merchant princes and manufacturers of the East, 
and the aristocracy of the South, he staggered and re- 
treated under the blows of the great abolition orator. 
Phillips was the champion of freedom for all men, 
regardless of color, caste or nationality ; Choate stood 
up boldly for the liberty of white men, who did not 
assail a certain institution of his day. Phillips had 
blue blood in his veins, occupied a high social position, 
enjoyed the advantages of the best education Harvard 
could give him, was personally attractive and handsome, 
and, as an accomplished orator, without a rival. Choate, 
with all his ability, legal skill and electric fire, stood in 
the shadow of his opponent. 

Napoleon said, " I fear three newspapers more than 
a hundred thousand bayonets." Phillips could have 
named some of the newspapers which Choate, with all his 
courage and intellect, was afraid of. Artemus Ward 
said, " It would have been five dollars in a certain 
man's pocket if he had never been born." It would 
have added laurels to the crown of some of the great- 
est men of Massachusetts if they had dared to stand on 
the side of the oppressed ; if they had used their gift 
of eloquence in pleading for the rights of those who 
were struck damb in their chains. When Phillips 
spoke, his hearers were delighted with the music of his 
argument, being charmed and convinced, if not con- 



2i8 Representative Men. 

victed, at the same moment. Choate amused and elec- 
trified his listeners with a splendid display of intellectual 
fireworks. Rockets ascended with a whizz, and ex- 
ploded in colors that soon faded and left no trace in 
the air; wheels hissed and spun for a few seconds, and 
then stopped, leaving a wreck of cinders, but no light. 
Notwithstanding this, Mr. Choate had in him the ma- 
terial of greatness, and would have towered in statu- 
esque symmetry and grandeur had he been like Phil- 
lips, and Emerson, and Lowell, and Longfellow, and 
Quincy, and Dana, and other brave men, true to the 
instincts of patriotism and freedom. 




SIK JOHN A. MACDONALD. 



PLATE XXIV. 



Sir John A. Macdonald, 

PREMIER AND POLITICAL LEADER. 



" To know a man well, were to know himself." 

—Hamlet. 

I^HE best Canadian representative man I can think 
of at this present writing (July, 1882) is Sir John 
A. Macdonald. His star is in tlie ascendant, and multi- 
tudes are looking xijp at him. [It is impossible to look 
down upon a star]. The subject of this sketch is an 
adroit political manager, and he has just now added a 
new plume to his cap. Two constituencies have elected 
him to a seat in Parliament, and his colleagues in the 
Cabinet have been successful in their several provinces, 
and he will assume the leadership of his party stronger 
than ever before, being backed by a sweeping majority. 
The Conservatives have triumphed in Nova Scotia, New 
Brunswick, and elsewhere. Sir John stands to-day first 
among the statesmen of Her Majesty's American domin- 
ions. In 1878 he won great popularity by giving to his 
constituencies " a broad and comprehensive issue — the 
national policy of protection — and when he entered 
upon office he fulfilled his pledges. He gave a powerful 
impulse to manufacturing interests and industrial ener- 
gies, converted a treasury deficit nito a surplus, and 
promoted practical schemes of railway construction of 
the first magnitude." When the people had enjoyed 
the opportunity to investigate his plans, he dissolved 

(219) 



220 Representative Men. 

Parliament, and appealed to liis constituents for tlieir 
support on the basis of a high tariff. 

He has been triumphantly sustained, and a large 
majority hare given their hearty sanction to his policy. 
He went before the people with the issue of protection 
inscribed upon his banner, and he and his followers 
made that question the main issue of the campaign. 
The Reformers made other points as conspicuous as 
possible, but they were straws in a storm that swept 
over the provinces. It was the national policy of the 
administration that won public favor, and crowded the 
Ministers' benches with the friends ,and supporters of 
the Canadian Prime Minister. The mild declarations 
made by Messrs. Blake and Mackenzie, that free trade 
was unwise and difficult in the Dominion, and that they 
were desirous of revising the tariff, came too late from 
these captains of the opposition. These men, however, 
saved their own heads from going into the basket, 
whilst Sir Pichard Cartwright, who had gone to the 
front and taken ground against protection, was merci- 
lessly defeated. The Premier gained the day, because 
he told the truth in relation to capital and labor. He 
assured the voters that men of means would increase 
their investments, could they be made to believe that a 
general election would sustain his policy and not 
threaten them with bankruptcy and disaster. The 
Government has been sustained, and not a few Reform- 
ers rejoice because of its success. 

Sir John Macdonald has been in public service more 
than forty years, and most of that time as a Minister 
of the Crown, and often, by virtue of his talents and 
statesmanship, he has been leader and Prime Minister. 



Sir John A. Macdonald. 221 

Witli the exception of the finance department, he has 
filled every ofiice in the Cabinet, and he is the first and 
only colonial member of Her Majesty's Privy Council. 
The editor of the Phrenological Journal says : 

Sir John was born on the 11th of January, 1815, at Kingston, 
Ontario. His father, Hugh Macdonald, was a Scotsman, having 
emigrated from Sutherlandshire to Canada several years before. 
Having received the training of the Royal Grammar School, 
Kingston, he studied law, and commenced to practise in 1836. 
Ten years later he was made Queen's Counsel. His advancement 
was rapid almost from the time he made his appearance before 
the Canadian bar as a lawyer. 

In 1844 he was returned as a member of Parliament, and 
from that time has sat continuously in it. From the time that 
he was appointed a member of the Executive Council of Canada 
in the Draper Administration, which lasted from May 11, 1847, to 
March 10, 1848, he may be said to have taken part in nearly 
every measure of importance to Canada. One of the most im- 
portant was that which resulted in the union of all the British 
American Colonies, and to Sir John Macdonald at least as much 
credit is due as to any other man for setting the project on foot 
and bringing it to a success. In the Conference held at Char- 
lottetown in 1864 for the purpose of effecting a union of the 
maritime provinces, he was a diligent worker; and at the 
Quebec Conference, which followed that of Charlottetown, he 
presided, and there was laid the foundation which resulted in 
the Act of Union passed by the British Parliament, When the 
new Constitution came into force on the 1st of July, 1867, he, as 
Premier, was authorized to form the first Government for the 
New Dominion, and held his position until November, 1873. 

In 1871 he served as one of the ten Joint High Commissioners 
appointed by the English and American Governments to con- 
sider the "-4?a&<x»ia Claims," and whose labors at Washington 
resulted in the Treaty which received the signatures of all the 
Commissioners on the 8th of May, 1871. He has also served 
Canada in her diplomatic relations with the mother country anc 



222 Representative Men, 

other nations, frequently crossing the Atlantic as a delegate or 
commissioner; and, on such occasions, exhibiting great talent 
as a diplomatist. In connection with the " ^IZa&awti Commis- 
sion," it was said that Sir John Macdonald was clearly one of 
the ablest men in it. In his private relations he is universally 
popular, and in politics his hold on the affections of his follow- 
ers is something extraordinary. 

In a letter recently received from Dr. A. M. Ross, formerly of 
Toronto, now of Montreal, to whose kindness we owe the pho- 
tograjjhic portrait from which our engraving has been prepared, 
the following remarks occur : 

"As a statesman, he stands head and shoulders above any 
other man in the Dominion of Canada. He is perfectly unself- 
ish. Although his career has abounded with opportunities to 
amass riches, he is now, and always has been, comparatively 
poor Although Sir John is a Tory and a political oppo- 
nent of mine, I believe him to be a true friend of Canada, and 
the only real statesman we have in this country.'' 

Persons who are adepts at reading and understand- 
ing faces will see that the portrait of Sir John Mac- 
donald pictures a man of distinct force and character. 
His head is a bank on which he can draw for treasures 
of information on history, science, constitutional law 
and parliamentary knowledge, and never have a draft 
dishonored for lack of intellectual wealth on deposit. 
In debate he is quick, trenchant and strong. In the 
chair, as a presiding officer, he is sharp, acute and mas- 
ter of the situation ; being thoroughly familiar with all 
the details of parliamentary law. He can think fast and 
coin his thoughts into speech ; and., in the words of an- 
other, speaking of Webster, "every word weighs a 
pound." 

The portrait shows the " true inwardness" of the man. 
We see the shrewdness of the experienced politician, 



Sir yohn A. Macdonald. 223 

toned and governed by the wisdom of the statesman. 
He is cautious, but not timid ; discreet, but not 
shackled by hesitancy ; brave in his endeavor, but not 
heedless in the discharge of his public duties. The 
face is smoothly shaven, and there is nothing to con- 
ceal the thought w^ithin, when it is revealed on brow 
and cheek and chin. The strong features tell his op- 
ponents, before he has spoken a word, that a contest 
with him is not a holiday task. 

Plis eloquence is argumentative, not mechanical ; 
with emotion sufficient to fuse his facts in a flow of 
masterly speech. He does not, as a rule, indulge in 
flights of fancy, nor " tread the primrose path of dal- 
liance." His manner would be better adapted to the 
House of Commons in England than it would to the 
aerial style of the French, whose orators prefer to rise 
in a balloon of gas and wind to the natural ascension 
caused by the vibrant wings of thought and feeling. 
He would not figure so conspicuously, certainly not so 
advantageously, in the American Congress as he does 
in the Canadian Parliament, because he would be cast 
in the shadow of the spread eagle. I speak of the style 
of his speech, not of the weight of his logic. In calm de- 
bate there are few men who are his peers in any legisla- 
tive body. Not that he is richly endowed with the poet's 
imagination, the highest of intellectual gifts. If he 
can not give the world that looks up with admiration 
an idea bright and round and perfect as a star, he can 

" Pour out all as plain 
As downright Sbippen or as old Montaigne." 

He is a statesman and a born leader of men, and he 
knows how to speak and when to speak; and, without 



224 Representative Men. 

indulgence in verbiage, he strikes and hits, with words as 
hard and hot as heated cannon-balls, whatever opposes 
his pet measures in the House. He is too busj and 
too much in earnest to plane, joint and polish nice lit- 
tle addresses for the purpose of saving them for show 
in glass-cases. He can, when occasion demands the 
service, write a handsome essay and adorn it with gems 
of poetic and eloquent expression. 




KEY. DAVID SWING. 



PLATE XXV. 



Rev. David Swing,' 

TEACHER, PREACHER. AND CRITIC. 



" One has to teach that labor is divine, 
Another freedom, and another mind." 

PROFESSOR SWI]^G, of Chicago, has been lectur- 
ing and preaching in the Eastern District of the 
city of Brooklyn. He came at the solicitation of the 
Rev. Dr. Edward Eggleston, to preach the installation 
sermon and assist at the public ceremonies of uniting 
" the pastor with the people of the ' Church of the 
Endeavor.'" We will try to sketch him as he ap- 
peared before one of the most exacting, critical and cul- 
tivated audiences ever assembled within the walls of a 
church in the " City of Churches." 

Whitelaw Reid, Esq., the accomplished editor-in- 
chief of the New York Tribune^ and twenty years ago 
a college class-mate of Prof. Swing's, very modestly and 
happily introduced the lecturer, in a few well-chosen 
words, in which he congratulated the church and its 
guests on the fact that Dr. Eggleston had been a 
magnet of sufficient power to draw the distinguished 
preacher to the East. Mr. Reid is a tall, slender, grace- 
ful gentleman, with a good voice and pleasant utterance. 



* This sketch was written several years ago, and the " We," which 
will be noticed as employed to distinguish the author, was used by the 
writer iu preparing the article for the Metropolitan^ of which he was editor 
at that time. 

lo* (225) 



226 Representative Men. 

He has dark brown hair, a broad, but not high fore- 
head, and a face indicative of thought and culture. 
Soon as he closed his remarks, Prof. Swing arose and 
stood by the side of the desk, without a scrap of paper 
to assist him, and began to give his lecture on " The 
J^ovel in Literature." He spoke in a conversational 
tone, and his voice at first seemed out of tune, and his 
words were drawled along as though they came with 
reluctance or were unused to the passage. Besides he 
manifested a nervousness with his hands, like one feel- 
ing his way in the dark ; but the bright faces before 
him soon lit up his way, and the warm hearts beating 
with unheard welcomes, cheered him with their silent 
but magnetic music, and the appreciative auditor soon 
discovered the source of his power and influence as a 
teacher of men. It is not in his personal presence ; it 
is not in his voice, for that is not always remarkable for 
strength and clearness, and yet there are times when it 
is endowed with wonderful pathos and power, and then 
it rings out clear and loud like a silver bell ; it is cer- 
tainly not due to a ready flow of speech, for he is not a 
fast speaker, and, when not excited, even a little monot- 
onous; neither is it due to his manner, for he pays no 
respect to the studied graces of elocution as they are 
practiced in the schools. His marvelous success as a 
preacher, his world-wide popularity and fame are due 
to his intellectual vigor, his scholastic attainments, his 
originality of thought, his profound sympathy with 
mankind, and his unflinching courage in maintaining 
his views. He has a very attractive method of reason- 
ing, and his poetic imagination is a picture-gallery of 
illustration, which never fails to fix and rivet the atten- 



Rev. David Swing, 227 

tioTi of tlie intelligent hearer. When, fairlj waked up 
and warm, he loses the hesitancy that checked his utter- 
ance at the start, and what appeared like repetition be- 
comes the acme of emphasis. 

At such times he walks across the platform, and with 
his feet and hands gives force to the speech which, un- 
der the pressure of deep emotion, comes with freedom 
and fluency from his lips. His eyes glow with feeling, 
his face flushes, even his words seem to take color when 
** his blood is up." His learning, his familiarity with 
history and the classics, his knowledge of mankind, bis 
experience with the world, have educated him and made 
him fit for his work. He has been lifted into notice on 
the platform of opposition, and the sympathy of the 
masses has been drawn toward him, and he has been 
too true to his conscience and humanity to lose himself 
in the tide of public approval when turned in his favor. 

A few extracts from his lecture will give an idea of 
his style. In speaking of the novel in literature, he 
said: 

None of you can rise in your place and tell wby you love music. 
Very often we have to be like the young man who was walking 
in the garden among the Romans — I am sure it was in the Ro- 
man days — with an old philosopher, and, having come to a bed 
of poppies, the young man said, " Father, why is it the poppy 
makes people sleepy ? " Now the custom of those old Latin and 
Greek professors was never to admit ignorance of anything, but 
always to know the whole renson, and there are men yet living 
of that class. The old philosopher, looking upon the ground, 
said: "My son, the i3oppy makes people sleepy because it pos- 
sesses a soporific principle"; and the young man was happy. 

Dr. Swing holds that 

The novel is part of true literature^ that true literature is 



228 Representative Men. 

thought decorated, and that it sprinf^s from the emotional as well 
as fiom the intellectual nature of man. So that in literature you 
must have a universality of thought, thought ornamented, thought 
decorated, the thoughts of the heart. This is sufficiently inclu- 
sive, if it includes poetry, the drama, the great histories, the 
great essays, and religion, and is sufficiently exclusive if it throws 
out encyclopaedias, the Congressional Olohe, and, what is better 
yet, arithmetic, whicli is no part of literature. 

The lecturer paid a very high compliment to woman : 

I affirm, therefore, my friends, that of the novel, woman is the 
satisfactory explanation, the ample apology. The novel is that 
part of literature which is decorated, for the most part, by the 
beauty of woman. It is woman in liierature. I mean by this, 
not that woman is the whole subject matter. She can not be, 
but she is the inspiration, the central figure in the group, the 
reason of the grou[)ing, the apology for it, the explanation of it, 
the decoration, the golden light flung over the thought. 

There is a good deal of dry humor in his lectures and 
sermons ; here is a sample brick of it : 

But I perceive there are gentlemen present, and they may 
think that Dr. Eggleston has got me to come here to address 
some ladies' sewing society. The gentlemen have no doubt paid 
their entrance fee, and something should be said in their behalf, 
and I will state for them that every novel has its hero as well. 
But candor compels me, my brethren — I emphasize the word — a 
sense of justice compels me to say that there is not in the mascu- 
line nature the element of beauty that will ever enable it to be- 
come the basis of fine art. It is discouraging, but true. Why, 
my friends, who ever saw Faith, Hope and Charity pictured as 
three men ? 

Speaking of education, he said : 

Education being the power to think, the power to act, what 
we need is not information only, but awakening — something 
that will move the sluggish blood in our hearts and make us 



Rev. David Swing. 229 

truly alive. This is what we all need, because man is not only 
by nature totally depraved, but totally lazy. Edmund Burke 
was, indeed, a man that knew much, but you can find many a 
German professor in his garden that knows ten times as much. 
So Daniel Webster; but Daniel Webster felt deeply some of the 
truths of life. They flowed all through his veins, tingled in his 
fingers' ends — liberty for example, the Union. Education, there- 
fore, is not the amassing of truths, but it is the deep realization 
of truth, and hence around the great forehead of Daniel Webster 
all the shouts of liberty in all the ages of the past echoed a great 
music in the upper air. 

We will conclude these extracts with the following 
snggestionSj which are discriminating and timely : 

The question, Who should read novels ? is perfectly absurd. 
There are in all the arts the high and the low. The wit of 
Rabelais is low, of Cervantes lofty. The paintings of the old 
Dutch school were humble, being most of them scenes in grog- 
shops, but in the Dusseldorf school lofty, being for the most 
part great scenes from the world of nature. The poetry of 
Swinburne is low for the most part, that of Bryant lofty. These 
two colors, white and black, run through all the arts everywhere, 
and it is for us to choose. Who should read the novel ? Every- 
body should read the novel where woman decorates the great 
truths of life; but where the novel is the simple history of love, 
nobody. And especially should those read novels who most 
don't want to. They the most need them ; and there ought to 
be a law requiring a certain class of people to read one novel a 
year — persons who, through some narrowness of law, or of medi- 
cine, or of merchandise, or, what is most probable, of theology, 
have been reduced to the condition of pools of water in August, 
stationary, sickly, scum-covered, and just about to go dry. 

A glance at the portrait of the Rev. David Swing 
impresses one with the thought that he is a brave and 
modest man, endowed with buoyant hope and unyield- 
ing perseverance. Dr. Fatten, the champion of ortho- 



230 • Representative Men. 

dox theology, assaulted him with texts of Scripture, 
hurled duodecimos at his head, and punished him and 
his readers with columns of newspaper editorials ; but, 
unfortunately for the aggressor, he attacked the wrong 
man ; the Rev. Mr. Swing not only returned blow for 
blow, but beat him with his own books. 

Modesty is a conspicuous characteristic of noble 
minds. ]S"ewton, Kant, Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, 
evidently were not half so self-complacent and self- 
conscious as some of the conceited sophomores of a col- 
lege, or the verse-writers who torture town and country 
lyceums with a jangle of words, and consider the 
applause of fresh young men as the music from the 
trumpet of fame. Saint Paul, the man of vast learn- 
ing and maiwelous eloquence, declared he Avas the least 
of the apostles. The self-esteem of the Pharisee led 
him to say, '' Father, I thank Thee that I am not as other 
men." The language of modesty is, " God be merciful 
to me a sinner." A cold, unfeeling man can never be- 
come an attractive teacher, reader, actor, pleader, or 
preacher. His words may be clear as snow-crystals, 
but, without emotion, they can not warm and cheer an 
audience. If they ever move the hearers, it will be 
toward the door, and in the direction of the open air, 
where the birds sing in the sunshine. He who thinks 
may make others think, but only he who feels will 
make others feel — the former convinces, the latter per- 
suades. What feeling there is in the poetry of Homer, 
Dante, Isaiah, and David! Raphael made the heart 
beat on his canvas ; Michael Angelo vitalized the marble 
he carved ; Patrick Henry thrilled the heroes of the 
Revolution with his fervid and palpitating speech ; Mr. 



Rev. David Swing. 231 

Swing, who is not in the highest sense an orator, 
has a heart that throbs in his learned and ingenious dis- 
courses, and hence his popularity at the West and else- 
where. 

"Poetry and eloquence are twin sisters, feeling is 
their mother, thought is the father." Those who have a 
genius for love in its highest and broadest moods, will 
show it in acts of charity, in originating and sustaining 
philanthropic societies, in making sacrifices for the 
benefit of others, in forgiveness of injuries. It is not safe, 
however, to trifle with, nor to insult and abuse, men of 
feeling. Washington, when angry, was not choice in 
the use of epithets; Luther threw his inkstand at the 
devil ; Jesus punished with a whip of cords the mer- 
cenary money-changers. " Where the sun is hottest, 
there the lightning is reddest, and the loudest thunder 
speaks." " God makes even the wrath of men to praise 
Him" — when they denounce human slavery and in- 
temperance, and impertinent conceit, and snobbish van- 
ity, and pride and cruel tyranny and oppression. Our 
Reverend hero keeps rods steeped in brine for the 
backs of offenders, and lie swings his switch with great 
force, cutting through the sheep's clothing of the hypo- 
crite, and the thick cuticle of the hardened transgressor. 
I am not a preacher, and I will not sermonize, but I 
may be permitted to say, that he who has no love, no 
feeling for his fellow-men, has no love for the gracious, 
tender and loving Father of all. Rare Ben Jonson 
said : '• Who falls for love of God, shall rise a star." 
"Friendship and love are two plants from one root, 
but the latter has blossoms," said Klopstock. A 
preacher may be severe in speech and logic when he 



232 Representative Me?i. 

wages war with injustice, with meanness, with avarice, 
with appetite, as the surgeon is severe when he cuts 
out a cancer with his knife. " Sin is not to be taken 
out of a man as Eve was taken out of Adam, by 
putting him to sleep." Professor Swing is never dull, 
and his hearers never seem to be tired when he speaks. 
Of his vanquished foes I will only add, " De mortuis 
nil nisi honumP 




PLATE XXVI. 



Richard S. Storks, 

SCHOLAR AND HISTORIAN. 



"Thought is deeper than all speech ; 
Feeling deeper than all thought. 
Souls to souls can never teach 
What unto themselves was taught." 

— C. P. Cranch. 

REY. DE. RICHAED S. STOEES was born in 
Braintree, Massachusetts, August 21st, 1821. He 
graduated at Amherst College in 1839, and finished 
his theological preparatory studies at Andover Semi- 
nary in 1845. The same year he accepted a call to the 
Harvard Congregational church at Brookline, Massa- 
chusetts, and the year following he was called to the 
Church of the Pilgrims at Brooklyn, "New York. 
Many New Englanders and other persons of wealth and 
culture gathered about him and organized one of the 
most influential and powerful churches in this country, 
and they erected on the Heights a substantial and 
beautiful house of worship. In the front hall of this 
editice may be seen a piece of the veritable Plymouth 
Rock on which the Pilgrims landed. The interior of 
the church is splendidly decorated, and is often referred 
to as a model of artistic taste and elegance. 

Dr. Storrs is one of the most accomplished scholars 
on this continent, and few men of letters are as familiar 
as he is with aesthetic literature. His lectures on bios'- 
raphj and history are among the most fascinating and 

(233) 



234 Representative Men. 

brilliant productions in the language, showing diligent 
study, comprehension of his subject, and a highly culti- 
vated taste. Ills sermons, which are delivered with- 
out notes, are finished productions, fit for the most fas- 
tidious review, as they fall from his lips; and they 
deserve to be classed with the most polished of pulpit 
compositions. His delivery is slow, distinct, emphatic 
and impressive ; his languao^e is chaste and pure ; his 
illustrations are drawn from nature, science and his- 
tory, and are strikingly poetical and beautiful; and 
his subjects are well-chosen and timely. 

Learning and eloquence, combined with great talents 
and a genius for the Gospel, have given him an en- 
viable position among the foremost of our religious 
teachers and orators. Fine thoughts, clothed in ele- 
gant diction and decorated with happy and glowing 
illustration, attract and fasten attention. But his 
scholarly attainments and masterful command of 
thought and speech are not used for display. He is a 
preacher of the truth as he understands it, and aims 
with sincerity to bring sinners to repentance. His 
sermons tend to make vice and all forms of mean- 
ness hateful, and to increase our love of honor, of 
virtue, of justice, and of piety. For nearly thirty 
years he has preached to an exacting and critical au- 
dience, embracing jurists, doctors, editors, and other 
representative men of the highest culture; and he 
never fails to command their attention and admiration. 

When it is announced that he will lecture, no fee at 
the door prevents a full attendance, no hall is too large 
for his constituency of listeners, and they are not gov- 
erned by the changes of the weather and the vicissi- 



Richard S, Storrs. 235 

tudes of the seasons. They know that he will have 
something to saj, which they will be glad to hear. He 
has a marvelous memory ; and he can readily call to his 
aid his knowledge of science, art, history, poetry, biog- 
raphy, and theology, to illuminate and enforce his 
lesson. 

Perhaps he is the best living type of the Pilgrim 
preachers who made Plymouth Rock their pulpit, where 
the waves joined in the chorus of their songs. Had he 
lived and preached in London in 1640, when John Mil- 
ton took a hand in religious controversy, the great poet, 
I have no doubt, would have been one of his hearers. 
There are men whose loins are not so large as Dr. 
Storrs' little finger, who consider themselves infinitely 
superior to him, because they can make their auditors 
laugh and cry. They mistake volubility for eloquence, 
and a frothy feeling of animal excitement for divine 
inspiration. 

I can only point to a few facts which distinguish Dr. 
Storrs and tend to make him distinguished. He is a 
born preacher — the son of an extraordinary preacher. 
He seems to have inherited the genius of Gospel preach- 
ing. Henry Ward Beecher said that he must be a son 
of temperance, because his father was the father of 
temperance. Dr. Storrs breathed the air of a religious 
atmosphere at his birth. Not a barrel of flour, but a 
barrel of sermons, supplied him with spiritual food. 
The library may not have been tempting to him in his 
boyhood, but when he grew older and wiser, he saw the 
kind of pabulum on which strong men feasted, and 
he fostered an appetite for similar fare. In looking at 
him, we see the image of his father behind him, and the 



236 Representative Men. 

shadow of Elder Brewster in the distance, with the 
Mayflower tossing on a troubled sea, and a solid rock 
for a foreground. 

He not only inherited a good head, with a fine text- 
ure of brain, and a taste for intellectual studies, but 
he also had excellent opportunities for the improve- 
ment of his mind in the best schools and colleges the 
country could afford. Under the thorough training of 
the most accomplished teachers, he was well equipped 
for the life-task he had chosen. He did not consider 
that his diploma in college was a certificate of a com- 
plete and finished education, but merely a draft upon 
the bank of knowledge, to be honored, not at sight, 
but by earnest application in the future. Yast numbers 
of young men, who have enjoyed the advantages of a 
collegiate education, never get above their graduating 
honors. They are satisfied with their attainments, and 
withont any special aim in life they ignore study, give 
the best books a wide margin, devour light novels with 
a relish, sneer at the workers who earn their bread by 
the sweat of the brow, and finally come to them for sup- 
port. They are vessels launched from the literary dock, 
at Harvard or Yale, perhaps, with painted sides and 
white sails, but without ballast or rudder. They are not 
made of clear stuff. These men drift about at the 
mercy of events; some find refuge temporarily as 
clerks, as traveling agents, as reporters, as assistant 
teachers ; but many of them are wrecked in early life 
because they had no star to steer by, and no strong 
hand upon the wheel, no ballast of general intelligence, 
no stout rudder in the ship. 

This will not be considered a faithful sketch unless I 



Richard S. Storrs. 237 

iind some fault. We all have blemislies, and Dr. 
StoiTs is human. A little more emotion would give 
warmth to his sermons and speeches. The brilliancy 
of his efforts is more like the light of the Aurora Bore- 
alis than the golden light of the sun. His images are 
too often artistically carved out of Carrara marble, " and 
are cold to the embrace, though sometimes the soul 
breathes from their lips." He has studied history so 
much he " is a contemporary with the ancients, and an 
ancient among his contemporaries." 

Dr. Storrs, at this time, is in the prime of man- 
hood. In person he is large, tall, and stately, with a 
strong, enduring physical system. The compression of 
his mouth indicates stern resolution, determination and 
courage. A few years ago a former classmate, now a 
country attorney, called to see him, and remarked, 
*' Doctor, don't you remember me? I used to flog you 
now and then when we were chums at school." " That 
may have been so," said the Doctor, " but you could 
not do it now." He stands up straight and tall, un- 
moved by the changing winds of public opinion. Hap- 
pily fo;:* him he has had no such storms to contend with 
as those that have assailed some of his cloth. 

Several of his sermons and lectures have been pub- 
lished and widely circulated. He is the author of a very 
elaborate report of the revision of the English version 
of the Bible, and also of a volume on the ''Consti- 
tution of the Human Soul." He is a devoted friend to 
schools, and takes a deep interest in the welfare and 
progress of temperance, Sunday-schools, missionary 
work, and all institutions that tend to educate and ele- 
vate humanity. 



Rev. Morgan Dix, S.T.D., 

RECTOR OF TRINITY CHURCH, NEW YORK. 



"Endowed with courage, sense and truth." 
, —Park ELL. 

REY. MORGAlSr DIX -is the son of Ex-Governor 
John A. Dix, and was born in 'New York in 1827. 
He graduated at Columbia College in 1848, and four 
years later received his diploma from the General Theo 
logical Seminary. In 1852 he was ordained deacon in 
St. John's Chapel, ^ew York, and in 1854 he was or- 
dained priest in St. Mark's Church, Philadelphia, where 
he assisted the Kev. Dr. Wilmer. In 1855 he became 
one of the assistant ministers of Trinity parish, in 
1858 assistant rector, and in 1862 rector. Columbia 
College gave him the degree of A.B. in 1848, A.M. 
in 1851, and S.T.D. in 1863. 

Dr. Dix has published an Essay on Christian Art, 
Commentaries on the Epistles to the Homans, Galatians 
and Colossians, Lectures on Pantheism, a volume on 
Marriage, Divorce and Religious Orders, and several 
tracts, manuals and sermons. 

In person, Dr. Dix is tall and thin, with pale, refined 
features. He has a thoughtful and severe look, as 
though absorbed in study, and seems to lack the vigor 
and cheerfulness of sound physical health. He has a 
superb head, which distinguishes him as a man of the 
highest order of intellect and culture ; and he is an ac- 
(238) 




KEV. DR. MORGAN DIX. 



PLATE XXVIl 



Rev. Morgan Dix, S.T.D. 239 

complislied gentleman, whose speech and manner are 
free from affected greatness and supercilious airs. 
Born to wealth, and the inlieritor of a good name, he 
never seems to be oppressed with the sense of his im- 
portance, but "keeps on the even tenor of his way," 
faithfully performing his duty, studiously preparing 
himself for his task, and meekly bearing the honors 
and the crosses that accompany his noble mission as a 
preacher of the Gospel. He stands in the forefront of 
the " younger army " of ministers in this country, and 
as a scholar and a preacher he has few equals. 

Pie has already won a wide influence and an enviable 
reputation as a student of literature, a thinker, and a 
theoloo^ical teacher. In his own church he stands well 
as a scholar, writer and speaker, and notwithstanding 
occasional harshness in his voice, he often rises to the 
realms of genuine eloquence, clothing his thoughts in 
pure and beautiful language, drawn from the " well of 
English undeiiled." 

Dr. Dix is the rector of the richest church in this 
country. Its great wealth consists mainly in real es- 
tate, which is held by trustees, and the income thus de- 
rived is used principally for the advancement of Chris- 
tianity and education. Its muniflcent contributions 
have aided and continue to aid other churches, and its 
missions are among the noblest and most useful in the 
country. It feeds, clothes and shelters the poor, and 
cares for the sick and afflicted, while it looks after the 
spiritual welfare of all. The tall spire of Trinity is a 
metropolitan landmark, pointing like the finger of 
Charity to Heaven. Its shadow, near the gold market, 
where so many bow to Mammon, seems like "the 



240 Representative Men. 

shadow of a rock in a weary land." The chiming bells 
of this church are a delight and a charm to all who 
hear them. Their musical tones cheer the soul and im- 
part new hope to the unfortunate and the despondent, 
and kindle fresh vigor in the hearts of brave men, who 
do not limit their studies to the reading of the prices 
current, the bank-note list, and the bill of fare. Even in 
Wall Street there are many men who look beyond their 
bank accounts and higher than " dear old Trinity " 
steeple and think of questions that are not subject to 
the rise and fall of stocks. They believe tliat the chief 
end of man is not to glorify gold, however useful it 
may be in this life, and that there is something worth 
living for beside the acquisition of wealth. Trinity 
stands on Broadway at the head of Wall Street, and 
sometimes the shadow of its spire on the stony pave- 
ment seems like a pencil writing a lesson for merchant 
princes and millionaires to read. 




EDWAED EGGLESTON. 



PLATE XXVI U 



Edward Eggleston, 

PREACHER, EDITOR AND NOVELIST. 



"King out the darkiiess of the land, 
Ring in ttie Christ that is to be." 

— Tennyson. 

I) EY. DR. ED WAED EGGLESTOJST was bora in 
i Yevay, Indiana, December 10, 1837. His educa- 
tion was very irregular, being frequently interrupted 
by ill-health, superinduced by a malarial climate and 
excessive study ; but he managed to master half a dozen 
languages and become especially versed in English and 
French literature. He began to travel a " circuit " as 
a Methodist preacher, while yet under nineteen years 
of age, doing much of his reading on horseback. His 
health failing, he went to Minnesota in 1856, and again 
in 1857, and remained there until 1866. He was mar- 
ried in 1858, when he was a little over twenty years of 
age, and during the j&rst eight or ten years of his mar- 
ried life, his income ranged from $400 to $1,000 
per annum. Broken down in health he went to 
Chicago in 1866, to edit the Little Corjporal, and soon 
after became editor of the National Sunday-School 
Teacher. In 1870 he left that position and became lit- 
erary editor of the New York Indejpendent^ in Decem- 
ber of that year, and when Theodore Tilton retired he 
took his chair under the title of superintending editor, 
but retired in July, 1871, to take charge of Hearth and 
Home. It was for this paper he wrote " The Hoosier 
II (241) 



242 Representative Men. 

Schoolmaster," '' The End of the World," and " The 
Mystery of Metropolisville." The first of these won 
for him a wide reputation, doubled the circulation 
of the paper, and was transferred to the columns of 
other journals, and its sale, in book form, reached 
35,000 copies. "The End of the World," published 
later, reached a sale of 20,000 copies, and "The Mys- 
tery of Metropolisville " attained a sale of 13,000. Of 
" The Circuit Rider," issued about a year ago, 20,000 
copies have been sold, bidding fair to rival in circula- 
tion " The Hoosier Schoolmaster." He is the author 
of " Yillage Life in Ohio " and other works whose 
titles I can not now remember. 

Dr. Eggleston is a fluent and easy speaker ; indeed, 
there are times when his words flow so rapidly that they 
defy the skill of the practiced phonographer, and we 
may add here, that what he makes up in fluency, he 
probably loses in force, for he talks faster than the or- 
dinary hearer can think consecutively. Every now and 
then he strides ahead of his audience, compelling them 
to skip important ground to get even with him at the 
close of the sermon. Having been a reviewer of mag- 
azines and books, as well as an editor, he knows how 
superficial ordinary criticism is apt to be, so that he is 
not at all afraid of the critics, interviewers and report- 
ers, and other bookish men who hear him. He speaks 
extemporaneously from mere heads to his discourse, but 
the heads have brains in them, and it is his matter which 
attracts more than his manner, for though not always in 
the highest sense an orator, yet he has flights of feeling 
and poetic utterance that are truly eloquent. Dr. Eg- 
gleston's use of the pen has been of incalculable advan- 



Edward E(rzleston. 



<b^' 



243 



tage to him, for while it broadened his reputation, it 
supplied his quiver of thought witli arrows of illustra- 
tion and sentiment, and, at the same time, gave him 
self-reliance and courage to speak the truth as he un- 
derstands it. In person he is of medium height and of 
slender build. His sloping shoulders are surmounted 
bj a finely developed head, which is covered with a 
mass of dark hair that falls upon his forehead and flows 
over his coat-collar. 

Dr. Eggleston is in great demand as a writer for first- 
class magazines, and as a lecturer he also figures con- 
spicuously, especially before Sunday-school conventions 
and Young Men's Christian Associations. 

When the foregoing was written, Dr. Eggleston was 
pastor of the Lee Avenue Congregational church. His 
labors in the pulpit and with the pen undermined his 
health, and he was compelled to discontinue preaching, 
and for a time all literary work. He finally resigned 
his pastorate, and in obedience to the directions of his 
physician, sought rest and health in France, and in 
Italy. After several months' absence he returned 
greatly improved in strength and vigor, but not sufi[i- 
ciently recovered to resume his ministerial labors. He 
retired to the country in the vicinity of Lake George, 
where, " at his own sweet will," he fills the spaces of 
leisure writing stories for the magazines, for he holds 
the pen of a ready writer, and his popularity long ago 
flowered into that sort of praise whose seeds are 
shekels. 

To those unacquainted with him his heavy shock of 
hair and full, long beard, may look like a sign of affec- 
tation, but he really is open as the day, and too much 



244 Representative Men. 

of a man to put on the airs of singularity, or to en- 
deavor to attract attention bv his dress or address. He 
is frank, friendly, and his hearty sympathy is apparent, 
not only in his countenance, but in his conduct toward 
all with whom he associates. He is about lifty-iive 
years of age, although he appears to be much younger, 
and that is strange indeed, for he has been a hard 
worker from his youth up, and has suffered considera- 
bly from sickness. He is a very interesting speaker — 
not eloquent, but in earnest — and having something to 
say, he speaks right out in plain Saxon, and with the sin- 
cerity and pluck of a Puritan, but with the broad and 
liberal view of one of Channing's disciples. In some 
respects he reminds one of the Kev. George McDonald, 
of England. They are both preachers and lecturers, 
both writers of novels and poems. Here is one of Dr. 
Eggleston's specimens of verse : 

I serve not God from fear of grief, 
Of endless torments with the lost, 
Who in the Stygian Sea are tossed, 

Through long eternities without relief. 

I will not like a craven serve my chief. 

It is not joy of Paradise, 

The inward bliss to ears untold, 

The mystic city paved with gold, 
That makes me strive from sin to rise. 
Let me not have a hungry hireling's eyes. 

The Christ, the well-beloved Son, 

Was good for very goodness' sake. 

His painful cross I gladly take, 
And ask no pay, but duty done. 
Among Thy sons, O God, let me be one. 



Edward Eggleston. 245 

The foregoing lines, if not first best poetry, contain a 
manly, a Christian creed. Dr. Eggleston has a good 
memory ; and having ambition to climb to altitudes of 
usefulness as a speaker and writer, mastered several 
lanojuaores, made himself familiar with modern litera- 
ture, and being a close observer, studied with re- 
markable success the morals, manners and peculiari- 
ties of the Western people, hence the unprecedented 
popularity of his writings at the West. 

He always manifested a deep interest in the moral 
and mental education of children, and a goodly number 
of young men have been advanced to places of honor 
and trust through his efforts. True manliness seems to 
be one of his striking attributes, and that gives a tone 
to his lectures and sermons, in which we find piety with- 
out bigotry, morality without austerity, earnestness 
without harshness, and sympathy without sentimental 
weakness. His chief fault was impatience with older, 
if not wiser men, who preferred to continue on the 
well-beaten track trod by their predecessors to the 
" shorter cut across lots " to the gates of the city of 
gold. 

This characteristic is due in part to his early environ- 
ments. The prairies are broad and free — the boulevards 
of liberty, where armies can march unhindered by 
hedges of bayonets or the walls that fringe the estates 
of princes ; the lakes are " inland seas," whose waves, 
white-capped and jubilant, shout like nations that have 
escaped from chains and slavery ; and the long, wide 
rivers march, like Sherman's troops, in triumph to the 
sea ; — these surroundings have an educating influence, 
and inspire the plastic mind with the peculiar ideas of 



246 Representative Men. 

unrestrained independence. Furthermore, as a boy- 
preacher he had doubtless to do battle once in a while 
with aged men of less brains, who were jealous of his 
popularity ; and last, but not least, he was a trained 
writer, and in comparing and contrasting himself with 
A.M.'s and D.D.'s and LL.D.'s, he found encourage- 
ment and confidence which grew into self-poise and 
self-consciousness of the inoffensive stamp, for he never 
neglects nor slights the humblest man or woman that 
he meets ; he never fails to reciprocate the civilities of 
those who salute him with friendly hands or those who 
meet him in the arena of debate ; he honors character 
and talent wherever he finds them. He knows that 
the young man who builds a good name, cementing his 
work with truth and virtue, will erect a tower of character 
that will rise higher than the " flood of years," and he 
honors him. He, so far as I can judge, aims at human 
welfare ; and he has, to my certain knowledge, put him- 
self to considerable inconvenience to obtain good situ- 
ations for young men whom he had reason to believe 
were industrious and trustworthy. 

In his pulpit and platform lessons he endeavored to 
persuade men and women to be charitable and loyal to 
humanity, and to honor the common people and the 
common employments ; to let the church doors swing 
on hospitable hinges ; to deem no pew too good for the 
humblest man ; to hold no reserve seats for the rich 
when it costs the discomfort of the poor. He believes 
that the world of civilization, with its palaces, art gal- 
leries, museums, libraries, banks, colleges, universities, 
music-halls, is based upon the solid granite of the com- 
mon callings of life, and if they should be put down or 



Edward Eggleston. 247 

be withdrawn, society would collapse in rain, and chaos 
would come with thick darkness upon the face of the 
earth, for it would be as disastrous as the jieldino^ of 
the laws of gravitation. ''Labor rears great civiliza- 
tions that run like mountain ranges through the level 
centuries, their summits sleeping among the clouds or 
still flaming with the Are that fills them, or looming 
grandly in the purple haze of history." Hard work has 
made some men so great, and lifted them to such lofty 
points, they can be seen from every latitude. Contrast 
them with the limp esthetes and languid carpet knights 
and fast men who, in the language of the poet Lilly, 
never open their mouths in earnest save when they sit 
down to eat. They draw their rations of food, and 
light and air and sunshine ; see the glory of the flow- 
ers and the frescoed sky; hear the music of the birds, 
and render no service in return. 

Those who are not ashamed to dig, but too proud to 
beg, are the useful men and women ; they can afford to 
share the cup and the crust with the needy, and they 
will not withhold the pleasant smile and the kind word, 
for they belong to the heritage of honor. It is an en- 
vious task to be able to reach the multitude with les- 
sons of wisdom, and to encourage those who stand in 
the front of adverse events and in the midst of unhappy 
surroundings, to stand firmly upon the rock of truth 
and not yield to temptation, though it comes in the 
guise of an angel of light. As a manly, heroic, hearty 
advocate of physical, moral and religious culture, Dr. 
Eggleston deserves generous and grateful recognition. 



F. E. Spinner, 

EX-U. S. TREASURER, BANKER, AND POLITICIAN. 

"The wiser mind mourns less for wliat age takes away than what it 
loaves behind." — Wordsworth. 

THE subject of this sketch recently celebrated his 
eightieth birthday at his winter home in Jackson- 
ville, Florida. He has been a verj active man as law- 
yer, merchant, banker, member of Congress, United 
States Treasarer, etc., etc. His artistic and singular 
autograph, which defies the artistic pen-and-ink skill of 
the counterfeiter, is well known, and instantly recognized 
wherever " greenbacks " are circulated. Like the lines 
written by the sibyls on the forest leaves, his name has 
been duplicated beyond computation. Perhaps no other 
living man has made such a conspicuous endorsement 
of notes. When I first became acquainted with the 
Hon. F. E. Spinner, he represented the largest constitu- 
ency, and the greatest majority, of any other member 
of Congress from the State of New York. At that 
time he was one of the " best abused men" in the Empire 
State. The administration of the previous Congress 
spotted him, and spared no pains, no cost, no labor, to 
prevent his renomination ; and, when the effort failed, 
the same set of politicians endeavored to sap and mine, 
and defeat his election. The pop-guns of the Lillipu- 
tians, and the cannons of the Brobdignagians, were 
leveled at his devoted head. A clique of " little great 
men," and others of larger stature, who considered 
(248) 




F. E. SPINNER. 

PLATE XXIX, 



F. E. Spinner. 249 

their own schemes of personal ambition of the first im- 
portance, and the success of their party of secondary 
consequence, sought to snow hira under with opposition 
votes. Their self-conceit led them to cherish the hope 
that the honor designed for him would be bestowed by 
the masses upon their candidate, (I have forgotten his 
name) ; they considered that, in the event of his elec- 
tion, he would be like clay in the hands of the potter : 
easily moulded and shaped to suit their designs. In 
this opinion they may have been mistaken, for they 
were unhappy and unlucky blunderers, always doing 
the wrong thing, sometimes at the right moment. The 
General was triumphantly elected, by a majority exceed- 
ing the entire vote that first entitled him to a seat in the 
House of National Kepresentatives. He was denounced 
as a traitor, a tyrant, an infidel, an abolitionist, and a 
disunionist. Newspapers, circulars, tracts, and handbills 
were scattered broadcast before his constituents. These 
documents were distributed through the mail, and by 
hired agents, in every town and hamlet, in St. Lawrence 
and Herkimer counties. These libelous and infamous 
publications blistered the walls of every shed, liquor- 
shop, and public building in the XYIIth Congressional 
District. Not satisfied with assailing the political 
career of Mr. Spinner, his opponents had the imperti- 
nence to attack his private opinions on matters relating 
to his religious convictions, and they sought in every 
way to blacken his personal character. Such unblush- 
ing and outrageous hostility toward an honorable 
political opponent, has seldom found a parallel in the 
experience of Congressional candidates. Thank Provi- 
dence we had then, and have now a free press, free 



250 Representative Men. 

speech, free scTiools, and the people who read then and 
who read now think for themselves. At the time of 
Mr. Spinner's election wavering politicians were in the 
habit of blowing hot and cold, with their faces looking 
at the Southern cross, as Wendell Phillips puts it, and 
their backs turned toward the North star. They did 
.all they could to cover with mud the good name of Mr. 
Spinner, the people's friend ; but the truest patriots, 
and the most trustworthy defenders of humanity, went 
to the ballot-box on election day ^' like Idngs to a corona- 
tion," and voted for the man who never faltered at the 
post of duty, who was never absent from his seat 
during a session of the National Legislature, who was 
present at the inauguration of the Republican party. 
His friends knew that he did more than any other man 
to elect Banks Speaker of the House, and they knew 
that his record in the reported proceedings of Congress 
shows his unfaltering allegiance to his party, to human- 
ity and freedom. He made no " Buncombe " speeches ; 
never posed before the public as a leader, nor as a mar- 
tyr, but he " kept up a good deal of thinking," and did 
some excellent work as a voter. He was recognized as 
a practical business man of great executive ability. *' If 
Fremont is elected," said a Hotspur, '' twenty thousand 
men will rush to the Capitol," '' All after office," said 
Mr. Spinner. 

I have seen a photographic picture of a committee 
of conference of the United States Senate and House 
of Representatives of the army and appropriation bill, 
taken a score of years ago. The committee consisted 
of Messrs. Seward, Spinner, Campbell, Toombs, Doug- 
las, and Orr. Governor Seward, at that time the most 



F. E. Spinner. 2 5 r 

influential man in the Senate, and one of the ablest 
statesmen of his time, stood erect with hat and cane in 
one hand, and the other resting on the back of General 
Spinner, as though feeling for his vertebrae. His face 
wore the earnest assurance that the subject of this 
sketch was not afflicted with the spinal complaint which 
troubled so many of the I^orthern representatives in 
our national Legislature. Campbell, who was smaller 
and shorter than Seward, stood at Spinner's left, hold- 
ing a roll of paper and leaning on Toombs' shoulder. 
He evidently came directly from his toilet, where he 
had carefully prepared himself for the artist. Beau 
Brummel could not have excelled him in the turn of 
his collar and the plaiting of his necktie. Toombs was 
seated, with a scroll in his hand. He had a handsome, 
trustworthy face. He did not spend much time before 
the mirror the day his likeness was taken. '' The little 
giant," Douglas, was standing, and Orr was sitting 
cross-legged. There were six portraits, full figures, in 
the picture, three sitting and three standing. Spinner 
looked solemn and stubborn, as though he had been 
badgered by importunities and made angry by the un- 
accepted advice of his co-committeemen endeavoring 
to win him over to some measure that he loathed. His 
forehead was fluted with frowns, his lips compressed, 
and his eyes were fixed upon the roll Toombs held in 
his hand. Perhaps he (Toombs) thought it contained 
the list of slaves he threatened to call in the shadow of 
Bunker Hill. Douglas looked fiercely, but without 
hope of changing the obstinate purpose of our hero. 
Toombs and Orr had their eyes turned in another di- 
rection, as though any farther appeals to Mr. Spinner 



252 Representative Men. 

would be utterly hopeless. Seward was standing 
straight, for he was a brave man, and had, even then, 
faced many storms in the " irrepressible conflict." The 
picture is proof of the high standing of our distin- 
guished financier and statesman. He was a faithful 
and conscientious w^orker on committees whenever duty 
called him to his labors. 

President Lincoln appointed him to the office of 
United States Treasurer, and he held the position with 
honor to himself, and with credit to his country for 
many years, giving a good account of his steward- 
ship at the close of his term of faithful service. Our 
magnificent President had a model Treasurer. J^ever 
did a stain nor a shadow mar his integrity, which, like 
the shield of Achilles, was impenetrable. Had the 
vast sums of money in his charge been his private 
property, he could not have watched over the treasures 
with greater care. His vigilance was sleepless, and 
conscience kept guard in front of the vault. Millions 
passed through his hands without leaving a particle of 
gold dust upon his fingers. 

January, 1882, he celebrated his 80th birthday, 
and the following impromptu lines were sent to him 
by the writer of this sketch : 

Good friend, excuse this off-hand rhyme, 
It may not ring the golden chime. 
Verse may be pleasanter than prose 
When music echoes at its close. 
Pray, can it be, that fourscore years, 
With light of smiles and rain of tears, 
Have like swift swallows flown away. 
On vibrant wings of night and day, 



F. E. Spinner. 253 

Betwixt the heaven and the earth, 
Since the fair morning of thy birth ? 
I would not flatter with my pen, 
But I must state the truth, and then 
My page will palpitate with praise. 
Well hast thou earned thy restful days, 
Merchant and banker, statesman true, 
Loyal to the flag, red, white and blue, 
True to the stars that gave us light, 
When came the shades of gloomy night, 
The fiery pillar of the free 
That led us through the crimson sea ; 
No color-blindness dimmed thine eyes, 
Thy verdicts ever just and wise. 
As Treasurer, thy soul was just, 
Thy clean hands show no stain of dust. 
Brave, honest servant of the State, 
Thy labors have been hard and great, 
But they have won a lease of fame 
Time can not cancel. Lincoln's name. 
And his immortal Cabinet, 
Are linked with thine. Who can forget 
The brilliant galaxy of stars, 
Statesmen and mighty sons of Mars. 
May Florida — fair land of flowers — 
Sweeten with peace thy leisure hours. 
May many years of life be given 
To thee on earth, so near sweet heaven. 
Though Birthdays crown thee manifold, 
They can not make infirm and old 
The brave, wise man of fourscore years : 
This life is not a vale of tears. 
Changes may come, they bring not age 
To the philosopher and sage. 
In Florida " the fountain flows " 
That gives "immortal youth, that glows 
With health and vigor," it is said, 
For Mm who wears the laureled head. 



254 Representative Men. 

I will conclude with a brief reference to the steps he 
has climbed on the ladder of preferment. He has filled 
faithfully various posts of trust and honor. He was 
elected Sheriff of his native county, supervised the 
planning and building of the Utica Asylum for the 
Insane, studied and practiced law, was cashier of the 
Mohawk Yalley Bank, was deputy naval officer under 
the brilliant and eloquent Michael Hoffman, of glorious 
memory, was for two terms a member of Congress, and 
last, but not least. United States Treasurer. His father 
was the honored and Rev. Dr. Spinner, for many years 
pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church of Herkimer. 




HON. JACOB M. HOWARD. 



PLATE XXX. 



Jacob M. Howard, 

A PLAIN UNITED STATES SENATOR. 



" Who not)le ends by noble means attains, 
Or, failing, smiles in exile or in chains, 
Like good Aurelius, let him reign or bleed, 
Like Socrates, that man is great indeed." 

—Pope. 

THE subject of this sketcli was born and educated in 
Yermont, and afterward expanded into importance 
at the West, where he was crowned with the highest 
honors the State of his adoption could bestow upon 
him. He, with Mr. Z. Chandler, represented Michigan 
in the Senate of the United States, and the State never 
had an abler representative. He had the culture of 
Cass, with a broader and more liberal intellect, and a 
more generous nature. Indeed, it is not extravagant 
praise to say that, as an orator, he was a head and 
shoulders taller than that shrewd diplomatist was in the 
prime of his life. Cass was a statesman of the school 
the students of which were cunning politicians, and he 
devoted to his own interests and political advancement 
the energies he should have given to the country. By 
accepting office, he entered into a contract to labor for 
the welfare of the nation, but he never lost sight of the 
golden opportunities which promised him personal 
emolument ; hence he died rich in money, but left only 
a moderate legacy of political capital to his party. 
Howard was a good statesman, but a poor financier — 

(255) 



2$6 ^ Representative Men. 

his own interests seem to have been lost in the all- 
absorbing interests of the State and the nation. He 
represented Michigan, not himself, at the Capitol. 

General Cass had many excellent traits, bnt he conld 
have used the language of Lord Erskine toLordEldon, 
who held high office for many years, when he said, 
''^ Seals afford a good living P Howard was in states- 
manship what Ward was in business — a leader — a head 
man— one who w^ould be driver, and would not be 
horse. His opinions were sure to be sound, and he 
could express them with great power and eloquence. 
He had the vital, the emotional, and the intellectual 
force, and the flow of speech which a speaker must 
have in order to be truly eloquent. Cold words may 
be correctly spoken and elegant, but if there be no 
heart-pulse in them, they fall like flakes of snow from 
a statue of ice. I do not over-praise the prototype of 
this pen-and-ink sketch, when I say that he had a 
strong mind. He had enlarged and lofty views of 
political economy and constitutional government, and 
looked beyond and above mere local issues, further and 
higher than the district which embraced his residence 
and the bank where he kept his deposits. Without 
neglecting the interests of his constituents, he consider- 
ed the needs of the entire nation ; and when he spoke in 
the Senate, he had a nation for an audience, for his 
judgment was considered authority at home and abroad. 
He may have been called a solid man— a man of 
w^eight ; his words moved the scale in which they fell, 
and they throbbed with thought and feeling. He w^as 
a scholarly man, had been a most industrious student 
of books^ and had gleaned a great deal of useful learn- 



Jacob M. Howard, 257 

ing, wliicli lie turned to good account in his public 
labors. 

In speaking, he usually began slowly and deliberately, 
as though he would have caressed his lips into quicker 
life and feeling. When he had measured his audience 
and had fairly launched his voice, the blood hastened 
to the vital organs and the brain, and he warmed with 
the subject of discussion, every syllable coming clean 
cut and fervid from his tongue, while his large eyes 
glowed with magnetic fire, his whole face lighting 
up with gleams of emotion. There was no haste in 
his utterance, and no hesitation ; it flowed on like 
" Fontiac waves," gathering volume and power as it 
proceeded, sweeping before it the sophistry and even 
the argument of his opponent, as the waves do the 
weeds of the sea. His efforts were not of the spread- 
eagle style ; there were no rhetorical displays of lan- 
guage, no sophomorical lugging in of figures for the 
purpose of ornamentation. What he said was per- 
tinent, and in the plainest and most effective English. 
A few extracts from one of his best efforts will give 
the reader an idea of his style. 

Mr. Howard's funeral oration in memory of our late 
President, Abraham Lincoln, was fully equal to the effort 
of Mr. Bancroft on the same subject : 

Often during our country's yet unfinished trials we have seen 
in our streets the slow funeral procession, with its gloomy hearse 
and sable trappings, and listened with sad hearts to the muffled 
drum, as the remains of some hero, lately fallen in our defense, 
passed to the long rest of the grave. Martyrs to the holy cause 
in which we were forced to take up arms, our Richardson, Fair- 
banks, Roberts, Broadhead, Williams, Whittlesey, Speed, Buhl, 



258 Representative Men. 

and many — alas, how many others ! noble, brave, and generous 
— ^have been returned to us from the battle-field lifeless, but 
proud and enduring jDroofs both of the obstinacy of the conflict 
and the unconquerable spirit of freemen engaged in a righteous 
cause ; and every town and hamlet in the land has.witnessed the 
like pageants of sorrow, as the chances of war have enabled the 
friends of our slaughtered soldiers, fallen under the blows of 
the enemy, to reclaim their remains, and entomb them where a 
mother's or a sister's, father's or a brother's tears could moisten 
their grave. The hero dust lends sacredness to the spot, and 
often, aye, for ages to come, shall the hand of friendship plant 
and nourish there the amaranth of undying love and gratitude. 
Compared, however, with the multitudes who have suc- 
cumbed on the field of battle, and in the midst of the crash and 
clamor of the conflict, and have been lost sight of, those who 
are thus snatched from among the undistinguished dead are few 
indeed. The memories of all alike are dear to our hearts ; and 
the land has mourned, and still mourns as never nation mourned, 
for these her martyred children, whether in life they were high 
or low, rich or poor. And everywhere, whether in the costly 
mansion of wealth, or in the humble cottage of poverty, wher- 
ever the great grief has penetrated, the spirit of a just and 
sympathizing country has been present to whisper consolation 
to the mourner, and to bind up the wounds of private sorrow. 
Yes, we have a right to assert, and do here assert, a great and 
striking truth, tlmt the passions aroused and put into activity 
by four years of war, the bloodiest of the century, have not in 
any perceptible degree hardened the sensibilities of the Ameri- 
can people to scenes of private grief; but, thanks to the sound, 
pervading moral and religious instruction which underlies our 
civilization, those sensibilities, of which the love of liberty is 
the greatest element, are as fresh, as kindly as ever. 



"The sun had set upon the wide-spread joy, and the shades 
of night bad closed over the land ; but the flags of our gladness 
still fluttered along every street, and from millions of homes 
throughout the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific seas. 



Jacob M. Hozvard. 259 

The man in public employment had for a moment dismissed the 
anxieties of his position ; the minister of God was on his knees, 
praying for his country, his people and his race ; labor had laid 
aside the implements of toil and was smiling joyfully in the 
bosom of home and family; fireside circles were jubilant over 
the achievement of so many and such glorious triumphs, and 
the pale cheek of bereavement that had saddened over the death 
of heroic husbands and sons smiled from beneath its weeds, and 
in the general joy began to feel the relentings of forgiveness for 
their slayers ; patriot fathers at countless hearths were returning 
fervent thanks to God for the salvation of their country and the 
sweets of peace, under whose smiles their sons were about to be 
restored to their arms. All was buoyancy of spirit, gladness, 
and hope. A nation retiring to rest was blessing Abraham Liri- 
coln for the part he had acted in securing this almost heavenly 
contentment and joy. Fatigued with the heavy cares of State 
he had as a means of relaxation — for which he had a fondness — 
repaired with his wife and only one attendant to the theater, 
where, in his box, he was quietly witnessing the play. Doubt- 
less his active and benevolent mind, filled with the common 
gladness and enjoying in anticipation the glory of leadership in 
the great work of pacification, was at this supreme moment re- 
volving the means fitted for that end, and his soul reaching anx- 
iously forward to grasp the highest" prize to which humanity can 
aspire. He saw the wounds of a bleeding country stanched ; 
he saw prosperity restored ; the hand of industry again tilling 
the field it should reap; commerce again enlivening the land 
and the sea ; labor and skill hiding from view the furrows of 
war; the masses of the people of the North and of the South 
again united in the sacred bond of friendship, protecting and 
protected by each other, both clinging to the principles and 
government bequeathed us by a common ancestry ; and he saw — 
glorious vision ! — transcendent evidence of his greatness and 
goodness ! — the blessings of Liberty given to every child of 
humanity, without reference to the color of his skin, through- 
out the broad possessions of the Republic; calmly the great and 
good man sits, the center of a nation's love and gratitude — the 
hope, the only sure hope even of his enemies ; when suddenly. 



26o Representative Men. 

without warning, without the means of defense, and without 
even a moment to prepare for the Hereafter, he sinks under the 
blow of the malignant assassin. 

Mr. Lincoln was a great man — not great by culture or study, 
for the necessities of his early condition deprived him of the 
means of education, but great in his moral nature aad in the 
native powers of his mind. Cradled in honest poverty, he was 
literally one of the toiling millions. No family opulence came 
to his aid. Left motherless in his infancy, the father who 
reared him was too poor to give him instruction in any art but 
that of earning his bread by the sweat of his brow. He labored 
with his own hands at the hard and rugged tasks of the early 
pioneer in the forest. The woods rang with the axe of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, and the strong division fence between neighbors 
was the work of his hands. The wants, the tastes, the habits, 
the amusements of the hard-working settler— he was familiar 
with them all, because he had participated in them all. His 
character was molded by them; his sympathies were with 
them ; and though by his own almost unaided efforts he obtain- 
ed an education that lifted him above them and placed him in 
the legal profession, he never /d?f above them. The life of the 
pioneer is the school from which are drawn the true lessons of 
" liberty, equality, and fraternity "; and no one drank more deeply 
of this fountain of instruction than he. It was the source of 
that perpetual flow of laughter-moving anecdotes, quaint com- 
parisons, and piquant illustrations which filled his speeches, 
writings and conversations, and furnished aliment for that sin- 
gular love of the ridiculous and the comic which distinguished 
him, and which often showed itself in the most solemn transac- 
tions. His temperament was buoyant and hopeful, and his feel- 
ings remained placid and unrufiled under the most perplexing 
and irritating circumstances. He was resolute and courageous, 
but these qualities were modified by cautiousness that often 
looked like wariness, and even timidity, for he was ambitious 
of success, and well knew the uncertainty of events. No man 
was more patient and circumspect in weighing the consider- 
ations on both sides of a question and coming to a just conclu- 
sion; and when his purpose was finally taken, he adhered to it 



Jacob M. Hoivard. 261 

with manly tenacity. His word was that of a man of honor and 
honesty, and he scorned to shrink from the responsibility it im» 
posed. He resorted to no artifice or arrangements to avoid or 
evade it ; and consequently he never allowed himself to make 
hasty or ill-considered promises. Although slow in adopting a 
conclusion in matters of grave importance, his faculties were 
active and quick in their movements. His power of generaliza- 
tion was most vigorous and rapid, showing a keenness and just- 
ness of observation, a quickness and force of analysis, and a 
clearness of reasoning that fall to the lot of very few. This, 
united to the habit of unceasing industry and attention to the 
minutest details as well as the general effect of his plans, made 
him a most prominent counselor as well as actor. His self-reliance 
was great because his sagacity was great ; and those err egre- 
giously who suppose that the leading features of his policy were 
merely the suggestions of other minds. This trait of his charac- 
ter Avas especially displayed during the first two years of the 
war in his retention in command of Generals so violently op- 
posed to his political views as in the opinion of the great mass 
of his party greatly to weaken the military efforts of the Gov- 
ernment. And it must be said in his praise, that in this his ob- 
ject and intention were to unite all loyal men, whatever might 
be their mere party divi^^ions, in one grand and cordial effort to 
crush the rebellion. I have formed the ojDinion that the quali- 
ties of his mind w^ere eminently those essential to the profession 
of arms. He was courageous without rashness, bold but wary, 
of a quick perception of the nature of his own position and that 
of his adversary, and of a mind fruitful in resources, filled 
with a profound knowledge of human nature. 

When at home in Detroit, Mr. Howard was a regu- 
lar attendant at cliurch on the Sahbath. Unlike some 
of the men who have been honored with the confidence 
of great constituencies, he did not think it was beneath 
his dignity to be punctually in his pew on the day of 
rest. It was there I saw him, and noticed that he was 
an attentive listener, and I have no doubt whatever 
that he was also an appreciative one. 



Rev. John A. M. Chapman, 

LOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL PREACHER. 



" Sucli vast impressions did his sermons make 
He always kept his flock awake." 

— De. Wolcott. 

REY. JOHN A. M. CHAPMAN wa^ born at 
Greenland, New Hampshire, August 21, 1829. 
He prepared for college at Hampton, N. H., studied a 
while at "Waterville, Maine, and then took a two years' 
course of theological studies at Concord, at which place 
he began to preach as a "supply" in 1853. In 1854 
he joined the Providence Conference and remained in 
it until 1861, when he was transferred to the New En- 
gland Conference. During eight years he was pastor 
of prominent churches in Boston, Mass. He joined the 
New York East Conference in 1871, and was called to 
the St. John's Methodist Church in the Eastern District 
of Brooklyn, where he became immensely popular. 
The splendid and spacious building was filled to over- 
flowing with the elite and literati of the Methodist 
church in that part of the city. He remained there 
about two years, when his health failed, and he was 
forced to seek strength and vigor in the country. A 
few months' rest and recreation restored him to his 
usual force and energy, and he is now preaching with 
his accustomed elof[uence to vast congregations in St. 
Paul's chur^jh, in ISiew York city. 
(262) 




REY. DR, J. A. M. CHAPMAN. 



PLATE XXXI. 



Rev. John A. M. Chapman. 263 

Dr. Chapman is a scholar and a thinker, with suf- 
ficient imagination to color his reasoning without hiding 
it in the fresco-work of fancy. He looks into a ques- 
tion and through it, and yet his logic is not chilled by 
his exhaustive method, for his heart beats in what his 
brain suggests, giving life and feeling to his utterance. 
He is a very modest man, always shrinking from the 
public stare, yet doing his work faithfully, bravely 
and w^ell. 

Dr. Chapman should be lieard to be appreciated. 
There is no voice, no motion, no magnetism in the 
types, and they never do justice to an orator. There 
is no thrill in the lines as they stand in alphabetical 
armies on the page. The reader who thinks when he 
reads a good piece of prose or verse, will, like the dis- 
ciple of old, find his heart on fire ; but those who devour 
books as the grasshoppers do every green thing, will 
have no particular sensation while reading, save that of 
sleepiness and fatigue. 

In person the Doctor is of medium height, erect and 
slender. His broad forehead indicates the intellectual 
traits prominent in his mental constitution. He writes 
his discourses with great care, and makes himself 
thoroughly familiar with them before he presents them 
to his congregation. The hard study of preparation is 
undoubtedly the severe labor which saps and mines the 
foundation of his health. He is now in the zenith of 
his life, and if he would take more time for rest and 
recreation, and trust to his skill in extempore speaking, 
he would not so often require the physician, while his 
eloquence would lose none of its vitality. 



Rev. Robert Collyer. 



"It was well said, 
And 'tis a kind ot good deed to say well." 

SOME observers trace a personal reserffblance of 
Kobert Collyer to Henry Ward Beecber. These 
gentlemen are physically large, heavy, solid men, en- 
dowed v^ith strength, vigor and power of endurance. 
Their fathers were blacksmiths, who bequeathed to 
their children sound health and strong lungs, with, to 
human appearance, a long lease of life. They are 
bold, plucky and original, and have an inclination 
to seize the bit in the mouth, and run away with those 
who dare follow, heedless of a straight and narrow 
track, into a broader area, not walled in by creeds nor 
barred by toll-gates of sectarian sentiment. They have 
the gift of fancy, and, without being poets, they are poet- 
ical — and one of them writes verses. They are humane, 
generous, sympathetic and overflowing with emotion — 
and here the resemblance ceases. Mr. Collyer was mostly 
self-taught, being the graduate of a smithy, where he pick- 
ed np items of intelligence from borrowed books while 
blowing the bellows, fixing the facts in his memory 
when striking the hot iron. Henry Ward Beecher en- 
joyed — perhaps he would say "endured" — the advan- 
tages of a classical and theological education in his 
youth. About the time the former was working at his 
(264) 




KEY. ROBERT COLLYER. 



PLATE XXXII, 



Rev, Robert Collyer. 265 

trade in England as a journeyman blacksmith, and 
airing his eloquence on Sundays as a Methodist exhorter, 
the latter was preaching in a Western town, rendering 
the service of sexton as well as sermonizer, sweeping 
the church floors, lighting the lamps, kindling the fires, 
and ringing the bell. 

Mr. Beecher is a great centre of attraction, the peo- 
ple flocking to his church like particles to the magnet. 
He is, in a certain sense, the most popular preacher in 
America. From a literary point of view, and as samples 
of unstudied eloquence, his sermons and lectures are 
incomparably superior to Spurgeon's. 

Mr. Collyer is gifted with clear common sense, which 
often, when stirred with feeling, approximates to 
genius — indeed, he has the plain, honest, earnest and 
enthusiastic manner of speech and flow of thought 
which we baptize with our tears, and call eloquence. 
He has a talent for thinking, and the courage to say 
what he thinks. He strikes for what he considers " the 
right and the truth " as hard as he ever smote the red- 
hot metal on the anvil, and the sparks of his ideality 
fly in all directions, falling in fire upon the hearts of 
his appreciative hearers, to warm and inspire them with 
hope and zeal for the cause of humanity and justice. 
From the repertory of his experience, he presents facts 
and illustrations which command the attention. Phren- 
ologically speaking, he has very large comparison and 
large causality. Hence he reasons well — more, however, 
by the use of illustration than from effect to cause, and 
back again ; and yet he is not deficient in the use of 
the latter variety of logic. He has a great flow of 
choice language, using generally the simplest Saxon, 
12 



266 Representative Men. 

preferring tlie strong " hooks of steel " to the woven 
syllables of silk to hold his thoughts together in his 
essays and discourses. Unlike some of his cloth, he 
does not soften a reproof nor smooth his denuncia- 
tions of selfishness, to please the offender — neither 
will he "stroke the sinner against the fur," to start 
the electricity of his wrath. He will use his knowl- 
edge of men in the contest with an opponent, and 
first win his confidence and love, and then, in most 
ca^es, surrender follows quickly and easily. 

The following extracts from a leading journal will 
give the reader a correct idea of the eminent " black- 
smith preacher ": 

It is said that a gentleman once stopped his horse near a 
smithy in a Yorkshire village. On entering it, he hardly ar- 
rested the attention of a boy who seemed to be absorbed in the 
work of blowing the bellows. Closer observation revealed the 
presence of a book, placed on a shelf near the lad's head, with 
its pages kept open by two bits of iron. Each time he brought 
down the bellows or released it, he appeared to catch a sentence 
from the book. 

That boy was Robert Collyer, who was born December 8, 1823, 
at Keighley, a village in Yorkshire, England. His father was 
an uneducated blacksmith, though regarded as one of the best 
workmen at the forge in Yorkshire. In 1844, while working at 
his trade, without warning he fell dead. 

Robert was sent to school quite early in his childhood, and 
remained four years, and this was all the schooling he ever had. 
He quickly learned to read, and soon became thoroughly con- 
versant with the few books owned by his parents, viz., the Bible, 
"The Young Man's Companion," "Pilgrim's Progress," and 
" Robinson Crusoe." His father was then living at Fewstone 
Parish, where the children of the poor worked in the linen fac- 
tories, and from eight or nine to fourteen Robert's life was 
spent in this way. 



Rev. Robert Collyer. 267 

Then he left the linen factory and was apprenticed to a black- 
smith of Ilkley; and to the twelve years spent at the Ilkley 
forge, he doubtless owe- a strength of lungs and a robust f ame, 
exceedingly rare in the clerical profession. In a recent address 
he alluded to his health as " brutal." While at Ilkley all the 
money he could save was invested in books, which he kept on 
a shelf in the smithy ; and as he blew the bellows he kept. an 
open volume before him, and snatched now and then a sentence, 
as has been described. He made many a good horse-shoe, a feat 
of which he is still proud, and during that apprenticeship his 
future was decided. 

In 1847, influenced by the Rev. H. H. Bland, now of Montreal, 
Canada, who at that time made a deep impression on the York- 
shiremen, Mr. Collyer was converted to Methodism, and in 
.the following year, while still wielding the hammer at Ilkley 
on week- days, he attended the neighboring Methodist chapels 
on Sundays. His first experience in preaching was gained in 
this manner, at the same time he continued his studies assidu- 
ously, and gradually prepared himself for his life-work as a 
minister. 

In 1850 he concluded to emigrate to America, and it was on 
the 11th of May that he landed in this country accompanied by 
his wife, and a week later went to work at his trade in Shoe- 
makertown, Pa. Having brought letters from England intro- 
ducing him to the Philadelphia Conference, he was granted a 
license as a local preacher. At Shoemakertown, as at Ilkley, he 
pursued his trade as a smith on work-days, and on Sundays ex- 
horted in the little chapels wherever he could find an audience. 

It was customary then for local preachers to support them- 
selves mainly, and for the ten years he thus labored, what salary 
he received from the Conference amounted, as he has himself said, 
to " one almanac, various little household necessaries, and ten 
dollars in money." 

During the latter part of his blacksmith life he became ac- 
quainted with Lucretia Mott and Dr. Furness, and found that 
certain views in theology which he had a*cquired were similar to 
theirs. Dr. Furness invited him to preach in his pulpit, and by 



268 Representative Men, 

doing so Mr. Collyer incurred the charge of heresy, which was 
made in January, 1859, against him, and the Conference refused 
to renew his license as a preacher. However, in February of 
the same year he was commended by Dr. Furness to the First 
Unitarian Society of Chicago, which was without a minister. 
He went to Chicago, and was invited to supply the pulpit the 
first Sunday aftiT his arrival. The church was then disturbed 
by political differences, and some thirty or forty of the members 
withdrew, who invited Mr. Collyer to become their preacher. 
Thus the Second Unitarian Society of Chicago was formed, and 
grew so rapidly that a new edifice was built, which has been 
widely known as Unity Church, the congregation becoming one 
of the largest and most flourishing in the North-west. 

Mr. Collyer was regarded one of the features of the great Lake 
city, and inseparably identified with Unity Church. But after 
twenty years of hard work in connection with that Society, he 
hesitatingly decided to accept the urgent invitation of the 
Church of the Messiah in New York city, and last summer he 
removed hither to enter upon the new connection. It will be 
remembered that the late Dr. Osgood, previous to his withdrawal 
from Unitarianism, graced the pulpit of this church with his 
eloquent and scholarly presence for many years. 

While Mr. Collyer was settled in Chicago an interesting inci- 
dent occurred : 

One of his parishioners happened to visit llkley, the birth- 
place of his pastor. That little English village had grown to be 
a considerable town. Low, thatched houses had made way be- 
fore fine mansions, and the smithy in which the boy-scholar had 
worked and studied still existed, but the day of its disappear- 
ance was very near. The visitor inspected with some interest 
an old anvil standing in the shop. 

"How long has that anvil been here?" he asked of the pro- 
prietor. 

"Why," said the blacksmith, "it must have been here nigh 
thirty or forty year." 

" Well," said the gentleman, " I will give you twice as much 
for it as will buy you a new one." 



Rev. Robert Collyer. 269 

"Certainly," replied tbe puzzled smith, "but I would like to 
know what you want with this anvil." 

" I will tell you. There was formerly an apprentice in this 
shop who used to work on it. That boy has now become a 
prominent man. Thousands love and honor him as a friend and 
a teacher, and I wish to carry this anvil with me to America, as 
a memorial of the humble beginning of his life." 

The bargain was completed, and the anvil is now carefully 
preserved by the society of Unity Church. 

Robert Colljer (he prefers the plain name without 
the adornment of a title) has a large head, a luxuriant 
crop of hair streaked with skeins of white; a full, 
wholesome-looking face, cleanly shaven ; clear, round, 
electric eyes; a firm mouth and chin, indicative of res- 
olute energy that " dares to do right." 

There seems to be something in a trade as well as in 
a name. Elilm Burritt was a learned blacksmith ; Ly- 
man Beecher was a logical and eloquent blacksmith. 
Does the iron get into the blood of the blacksmiths, 
without getting into their souls? Is the flame on the 
forge a beacon tliat lures wisdom and industry to join 
with ambition in a search for knowledge and fame? 
Can the music of the ringing anvil drive away sloth 
and indolence and soothe the evil passions and appetites 
of the bronzed heroes of labor % Is it possible that the 
sparks flying in showers under the thunder of the ham- 
mer can suggest stars of thought in the Armament of 
fancy and imagination ? Is the physical exertion that 
conquers the resistance of the obstinate metal and 
moulds it to suit the taste of the workmen conducive 
to self-management ? When they strike, they strike 
for wages, and with honest sweat they win honest 
bread. They earn their bread before they eat it, and 



2/0 Representative Men. 

they are strangers to indigestion and the " blues." 
Longfellow, who was proud of his relationship to a 
blacksmith, has made him immortal. The man who 
steps from the forge to the rostrum and rises to distinc- 
tion as a teacher of multitudes, reflects honor upon hu- 
manity; but he who is ashamed of labor, and yet eats 
the food others have earned, is like the fabled Hermes 
who had a mouth and no hands ; and, acting the part 
of the vain patrician, mocked the plebeians that fed 
him. 




EIGHT REV. JOHN TRAVEES LEWIS. 



PLATE XXXI 



Right Rev. John Travers Lewis, 

FIRST BISHOP OF ONTARIO, CANADA. 



Patient of toil ; serene amidst alarais ; inflexible in faith ; invincible in 
arms. 

rpHE Eight Kev. John Travers Lewis, D.J)., LL.D., 
X Bishop of Ontario, Dominion of Canada, is a na- 
tive of Ireland, County Cork, and the son of the Rec- 
tor of St. Anne's, Shandon. His university course was 
passed at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated, 
as Senior Moderator in Ethics and Logic, and earned 
the distinguished title of Gold Medalist. His Alma 
Mater has since conferred upon him the degree of 
LL.D. He took deacon's orders at Cambrido^e, En- 
gland, in 1848, and was in due course ordained priest by 
the Bishop of Down, being shortly afterward appointed 
to the curacy of I^ewtown Butler, County Eermanagh, 
Ireland. Removing to Canada, the Bishop of Toronto 
gave him the appointment of curate to the county par- 
ish of Hawkesbury, on the Ottawa River. In 1854 he 
became Rector of Brockville, from which position he 
was called by an almost unanimous vote to the new 
See of Ontario. Upon his return into his parish im- 
mediately after the election, he was received with an 
enthusiastic popular ovation, which testified in a gra- 
cious and spontaneous manner to the coixlial satisfac- 
tion his elevation occasioned all denominations in his 
diocese. 

(271) 



2J2 Representative Men. 

Dr. Lewis, the first Bishop of Ontario, liolds a place 
in the esteem and affection of his people as conspicuous 
as are his zeal, efficiency and sympathetic kindness as a 
minister, and he enjoys a well-earned and honorahle 
fame in the wider circle of the religions w^orld of 
America. This result is not attributable to the merely 
felicitous use of opportunity. The reputation he has 
secured as a successful pioneer of the great principles 
of religion is more than equalled by the admiration and 
respect universally entertained for his personal charac- 
ter. In him the true active instincts of the Christian 
gentleman are united to the earnestness and energy pe- 
culiar to the virile and high-minded everywhere. 

The outward appearance of the man, even in re- 
pose, is a sufficient index to the strength and excel- 
lence of the spirit within. In the prime of life, manly 
and fearless in aspect and bearing ; possessing a voice 
mellow, persuasive and powerful, and a dignified de- 
livery which detracts nothing from the value of the 
matter by emphasizing too forcibly the manner of his 
discourse, he stands before his people a wise and elo- 
quent leader, a true and patient friend. In the erect 
carriage of his head and the light of invincible confi- 
dence, perfect sincerity and secure belief visible in his 
eyes, his hearers, friendly and inimical alike, recognize 
the insignia of a man of power. And when to this 
conviction are added the attractions of his graceful and 
brilliant utterance and bis mastery of every legitimate 
intellectual weapon, we are fain to concede his title to 
a high seat among the great minds of the day. His 
intellect appears to be of that order which holds 
true happiness to be possible only as man approaches 



Right Rev. Jo Jin Tr avers Leivis. 273 

complete self-development, according to the unques- 
tioned design of the Father of all ; and we readily con- 
ceive him as rejecting for worse than worthless the 
weak and inevitably futile attempt to discover in man- 
made dogma aught like adequate satisfaction of the in- 
finite needs of man's higher nature. The effect upon 
others of this manly moral attitude is to endow them 
with kindred convictions and aims and spur them to 
like endeavor. 

A man so amply and truly exhibiting the best 
characteristics of humanity ; entering at an early stage 
in his career upon an epoch potent for so extended 
usefulness ; a man of powers yet but half proved, and 
perseverance scarcely tried, is the natural lode-star of 
the hope and trust of his people ; and, although his im- 
mediate environment may seem to mark him as only 
the Episcopalian Bishop of Ontario, the general appre- 
ciation of his virtues and abilities assures us of the 
property that all sects claim to have in him. He is 
girt about with rich promise and encircled by the halo 
of a glorious future — glorious not in the personal 
growth and aggrandizement which will come to him 
as the inalienable birthright of the strong, but of the 
world of good it is in his power and intention to ac- 
complish. 

Ontario (a musical and beautiful name) embraces a 
population of hearty, brave and intelligent people; 
loyal to the mother-land, and proud of their allegiance 
to the Queen and throne of England. Its schools, un- 
der the supervision of the late Dr. Egerton Kyerson, 
have reached a high standard of excellence ; and its 
press, with rare exceptions, is conducted with spirit 



2/4 Representative Men. 

and dignity ; and, as a source of intelligence and edu- 
cation, is not surpassed b}" the press of this country nor 
of any other in either hemisphere. The Dominion 
seems to be prospering beyond precedent in wealth and 
population, and the recent developments in Manitoba 
have given a fresh impulse to all honorable pursuits in 
all parts of Her Majesty's domain in America. Win- 
nipeg, the capital of Manitoba, is a giant in its cradle, 
and it grows with a force and vigor that foreshadow 
its coming greatness. Already it has exerted a happy 
and wholesome influence throughout the Dominion — 
an influence that is felt in all the schools, colleges, and 
churches, as well as in the marts of commerce on this 
continent. 




GEN. ULYSSES S, GRANT 



PLATE XXXIV. 



Gen. U. S. Grant, 

SOLDIER, STATESMAN, AND EX-PRESIDENT. 



" I warrant him a warrior tried."— Sir Wax,ter Scott. 

ON the evening of the 24th of January, 1881, the 
Bedford Avenue Eeformed Church (the best build- 
ing in the Eastern District of Brooklyn for public 
meetings, and the most complete in all its details and 
appointments as a house of worship), was filled from 
platform to organ gallery with ladies and gentlemen, 
who met there to show their patriotic colors to aid the 
widows and orphans of "fallen comrades" — to enjoy 
the aesthetic treat of song and eloquence, and especially 
to see and hear ex-President Grant. In tlie pulpit, 
which, like Ahmed's tent, had been expanded, were 
Father Malone (who looks like Henry Ward Beecher, 
and who is catholic in his charities and in his sympathies 
as well as in his religious sentiments, and who is also a 
true patriot and republican); Dr. E. S. Porter (who 
was for many years the editor of the GJiristian Intelli- 
gencer) \ Dr. Peck (who is, notwithstanding his name, 
a mountainous man, and one of the bravest champions 
of freedom and reform); Corporal Tanner (who lost 
both his legs in the battle of Bull Run, but who runs 
ahead of all competitors when he is a candidate for 
office, and who takes the stump, or rather, I should say, 
takes two stumps, in almost every presidential cam- 
paign) ; Capt. Cochu, the chairman, ex-Senator Denins 
Strong, and others. Of course, the principal magnet of 

(275) \ 



276 Representative Men. 

attraction was Gen. Grant, who came late and was es- 
corted to his seat bj Mr. Silas Dutcher, who delivered 
the address, which was a fine one in every respect and 
worthy of the event. The orator, organist, and singers, 
all did their "work" well. 

But all eyes were directed to Gen. Grant, and I will 
give a short jjen picture of him. He was neatly dressed 
in citizen's attire, evidently put on and worn without 
thought of its cut, fit, or style. Of late his address 
and not his dress has attracted most notice, for the 
" silent man," no longer silent, is now recognized as one 
of the best after-dinner speakers in this country. [At 
the Press dinner, lately given in ITew York, he bore 
away the palm from Henry Ward Beecher and others, 
and was recognized as the most brilliant speech-maker 
at the table]. He sat in the center of the group, just 
sketched, "the observed of all observers." His face 
seemed cold and expressionless. He was not a "sashed 
and s worded sphinx," but it was impossible to read his 
thoughts and emotions by studying his countenance. 
His iron will has perfect control of his brain and heart, 
and no human eye could penetrate the "secrets of his 
soul." In the storm of war he had the same power over 
the muscles of his face, and no bearer of dispatches, no 
staff officer, no commander of the forces, could unveil 
the emotions concealed behind the blank curtain of that 
immovable face, because it is not an index to. the ideas 
and feelings that dominate the inner man. I watched 
the great soldier when the speaker "of the evening" 
gave his graphic description of the surrender of Lee, but 
there was no changing light, no shadow on his face, no 
movement of its muscles. His gray-blue eyes held 



Gen. U. S. Grant. 277 

tlieir sparkle in reserve, his mouth was firm as carved 
granite. He was just the man to use the sword in the 
surgery of war, for he had sufficient nerve to perform 
the most marvelous operations without tremor of heart 
or hand. When he arose to speak in response to calls 
from all parts of the church, he moved with a shuffling 
gait and not with a military step to the front, and in a 
modest little simple speech of three minutes' duration, 
acknowledged the compliment of the call and then left 
the platform in haste to keep another engagement at a 
Horticultural dinner in ITew York. The reader must 
not infer that this great hero and statesman, whose won- 
derful achievements have been crystallized in history, is a 
cold and unfeeling, unsympathetic soldier, for he is a man 
whose finely-developed head surmounts a true and gen- 
erous heart. He is as true to his friends as the " steel 
to the star." He will stand by them a little closer in 
adversity than in prosperity, and he will share the blows 
aimed at them. There are plenty of facts to prove his 
tenderness, his sympathy, his benevolence, as well as his 
great will-power and obstinate firmness. A smaller man 
would have been spoiled long ago by the- "homage of 
the human race " paid him at home and abroad. With- 
out the crown, save that of laurel, we claim that he 
is a kingly man. ISTot having in this country a throne 
hereditary, we enthrone him in our hearts. I am not 
speaking of him in a political sense. Heeding no im- 
perial sceptre, we bow to the sceptre of his intelligence 
as a noble and trustworthy citizen. " To err is human." 
He has made mistakes, and shown that greatness is not 
exempt from some of the faults of the race. Yon 
Moltke, the distinguished German soldier, could hold 



2^8 Representative Meji. 

his tongue in seven different languages. General Grant 
kept silent when speaking was hazardous in the Held 
and at the White House; but when he retired to pri- 
vate life he ventured to give free expression to his 
opinions on all sorts of questions. Being importuned 
to show himself at receptions and dinners, and at public 
gatherings, for the gratification of his friends and the 
benefit of humane and educational and social institu- 
tions, he sacrifices his desire for a quiet life, and takes 
up his cross to please those who gave him his crown of 
honor. He has been a public servant of the people, and 
they ask to see him and to clasp his hand, and he obeys 
their behest. They are gratified, and no persons are 
harmed save those who can not forgive him for defeating 
the rebels and saving the life of the nation. This, under 
Providence, he did, and he is entitled to all the lauda- 
tion that a loyal people can bestow. I said he has faults. 
The critic who may have nothing to commend himself, 
except his well-brushed clothes, says that Grant is not 
sufficiently particular in the arrangement of his coat 
and necktie. Thackeray said that George lY. had 
on his person an overcoat, a dress-coat, a waistcoat, and 
a flannel coat, and that was all there was of him. Let 
the snob make the application. The same type of 
fault-finding humanity found a similar objection to 
Horace Greeley, because he did not copy the pattern of 
his clothes from the fashion plates. Others, who think 
they were born to govern, and to have their fingers in 
rings, wonder why so much fuss is made about a man 
who has retired to private life, and who no longer has 
official "pap" at his disposal. These men, to use the 
language of Charles Townshend, have '' neither gram- 



Gen. U. S. Grant. 279 

mar nor virtue," nor gratitude, nor appreciation of great 
service. As the suns throw off their acintilkitions, and 
a spark becomes a revolving center clothed with light, 
and the Creator fashions it into a star, so the subject of 
this sketch emerges from the clouds of smoke and hur- 
ricanes of flame, and shines out in the firmament of 
history a star beyond the reach of the poisoned arrows 
of envy and disloyalty that are aimed at him. 



Paul H. Hayne, 



THE POET OF THE SOUTH. 



" Deal gently with the Poet. Think that he 
Is made of finer clay than other men, 
And ill can hear rough handling, and while we 
Of sturdier nature, laughed at, laugh again, 
And self-complacently shake ofi 
The world's unmerited contempt and scoff, 
As easily as from his scaly side 
Leviathan shakes off the drippings of the tide — 
Not so the Poet. On his keener sense, 
Light harms smite often with an edge intense ; 
A stony look, a lip of scorn, may crush 
His young aspirings, chill the stir and flush 
Of waking inspiration and control, 
Down into commonplace, the darings of his soul." 

—Henry F. Ltte. 

IT is safe to say that Paul H. Hayne is one of the 
best writers of verse in the Sooth ; indeed, he de- 
serves a place in the galaxy of American poets. Genius 
is not to be bounded by geographical lines. Like all 
original and brilliant men, he has a sphere of his own — 
and that is a hemisphere. In his verse the reader will 
find tender and delicate sentiment, glowing in the light 
of imagination, and expressed in finished and graceful 
rhythm. Even in his polished prose the gleam of fancy 
is seen, like sunlight through stained windows. 

Our poet was born in the city of Charleston, South 
Carolina, on the first of January, 1831 ; a N'ew Year's 
gift to his parents — and a bright one. His father was 
(280) 




PAUL U. HAYNE. 



PLATE XXXV. 



Paul H. Haync. 281 

Lieutencant Paul H. Hayne, of the United States Navy, 
a brother of the celebrated debater and statesman, Rob- 
ert Y. Hayne, who measured lances with D-aniel Web- 
ster in the United States Senate on the famous " Foote's 
Eesolutions." The subject of this sketch graduated at 
the College of Charleston in 1850 ; studied law, and in 
due time was admitted to the bar ; but preferring litera- 
ture to law, and being at that time independent as to 
fortune, he determined to gratify his taste and his 
aspirations in the pursuit of letters, and to work in- 
dustriously to reach his high standard as a writer of 
verse and prose. He edited in succession several papers 
and magazines ; the most popular, and the best " of the 
lot," was EusselVs Magazine. In 1855 his first vol- 
ume of poems came from the press of Ticknor & Fields, 
Boston. It met with a favorable reception, and passed 
through the hot furnace of criticism without the smell 
of fire or the stain of smoke. Even the fastidious E. P. 
Whipple praised it as " a work of great promise as well 
as fine performance." This book was followed in 1857 
by another, published in Charleston. It consisted main- 
ly of those difficult and usually tedious efforts called 
sonnets, but they were worthy a place with the best of 
their kind — the kind is generally monotonous. The 
" Ode to Sleep " is the best poem in the volume; there 
is nothing soporific in any of its lines. In 1860 a third 
volume appeared, bearing the title " Avolio, and other 
Poems." At the time of the outbreak of the civil war, 
when the North and the South met upon the field of 
strife, Hayne espoused the Southern cause, and was as- 
signed to a place on the Staff of Governor Pickens. 
His fine and delicate organization, however, unfitted 



282 Rep rc sent aiive Men. ' 

him for active service, and he was compelled by failing 
health to relinquish his military aspirations. When he 
sheathed his sword he re-nibbed his pen, and wrote 
with Her J energy in support of what is now known as 
the " Lost Cause." His spirited battle lyrics are fine 
specimens of war literature. The " Kentucky Partisan," 
"My Motherland," "The Substitute," "The Battle 
of Charleston Harbor," " Stonewall Jackson," " The 
Little White' Glove," "Our Martyr," and "Beyond 
the Potomac," have the brilliancy, sharpness, and clang 
of the sabre. A later poem, which appeared in J3ar- 
p<3rs Magazine, and which is entitled "The Dead 
Child and the Mocking-Bird " illustrates his method of 
treatment of a nice and tender theme. It is poetry, 
lacking, however, the finish and polish of some of the 
poet's later efi!orts. 

" Once in a land of balm and flowers, 
Of rich fruit-laden trees, 
Where the wild wreaths from jasmine bowers 
Trail o'er Floridian seas, 

" We marked our Jeannie's footsteps run 
Athwart the twinkling glade ; 
She seemed a Hebe in the sun, 
A Dryad in the shade. 

" And all day long, her winsome song, 
Her trebles and soft trills, 
Would wave-like flow, or silvery low. 
Die down the whispering rills. 

" One morn 'mid moss — the foliage dim, 

A dark gray pinion stirs, 
And hark, along the vine-clad limb, 
What strange voice blends with hers ? 



Paid H. Hayne. 283 

"It blends with hers which soon is stilled, 
Braver the mock-bircl's note 
Than all the strains that ever filled 
The queenliest human throat. 

" As Jeannie heard, she loved the bird, 

And sought thenceforth to share 
With her new favorite, dawn by dawn. 
Her daintiest morning cheer. 

" But ah, a blight, beyond our ken, 
From some far feverous wild, 
Brought that dark sliadow feared of men, 
Across the fated child. 

" It chilled her drooping curls of brown. 
It dimmed her violet eyes, 
And like an awful cloud crept down 
From vague mysterious skies. 

'• At last one day, our Jeannie lay 

All pulseless, pale, forlorn ; 
The soul's sweet breath, on lips of death ; 
The fluttering breath of morn. 

" When just beyond the o'er-curtained room, 
(How tender, yet how strong,) 
Rose through the misty morning gloom 
The mock-bird's sudden song. 

"Dear Christ, those notes of golden peal 
Seem caught from heavenly spheres ; 
Yet through their marvelous cadence steal 
Tones soft as chastened tears. 

"Is it an angel's voice that throbs 
Within the brown bird's breast ; 
Whose rhythmic magic soars or sobs 
Above our darling's rest? 



284 Representative Men. 

" The fancy passed, but came once more, 

When stolen from Jeannie's bed, 
That eve, along the porchway floor, 
I found our minstrel — dead ! 

"The fire of that transcendent strain, 

His life-chords burned apart. 
And merged in sorrow's earthlier pain, 
It broke the o'er-laden heart. 

" Maiden and bird, the selfsame grave 

Their wedded dust shall keep. 
While the long low Floridian wave 
Moans round their place of sleep." 

The antlior says that the strange, pathetic incident 
he has commemorated actually occurred, not many years 
ago, in the neighborhood of Jacksonville, Florida. 

Mr. Hayne was married, in 1852, to Miss May Michel, 
the daughter of a surgeon who served eighteen years 
in the army of the first Napoleon. 

The portrait which accompanies this sketch, illustrates 
the attributes of this poet of the South. The forehead 
is lofty, showing a fine development of what is techni- 
cally called Ideality and Sublimity. In person he is of 
slight figure and medium stature. His complexion is 
dark ; his eyes are bright and penetrating ; his tempera- 
ment sensitive ; his manner that of a studious " idealist 
and dreamer." His property was swept away in the 
storm of the rebellion, but, with real heroic endeavor, 
and the courage of his noble ancestors, he has faced ad- 
versity, and won his bread as a literary worker by the 
sweat of his brow. Mr. Hayne, like all true poets, is 
fond of nature. The hills, woods, waters, and the starry 



Paul H. Hayne. 285 

lamps in the sky, are all beautiful when seen through 
the lens of a cultivated fancy. The grass, the " hand- 
kerchief of the Lord "; the trees, whose branches are 
like ladder-rounds leaning against the sky, and filled with 
white-winged messengers ; the rivers pulsing to the sea, 
caressing the wild flowers on their banks ; the sky 
in storms breaking like an exploding shell upon the 
mountains, excite the imagination of the poet and the 
lover of poetry. Wordsworth's heart " leaped up when 
he beheld a rainbow in the sky." Form and color, light 
and shade, delight the eye ; the music of wind harps, 
of falling waters, of song birds, charm the ear. Those 
who love the beauty of nature seek to capture it. 
They catch her tones and put them into musical instru- 
ments ; they copy her varied hues upon the canvas ; 
they carve her fascinating forms in marble and granite 
and brass; and they record her marvelous doings in 
immortal verse. The artists who use their skill in 
poetic speech, and All their books with aesthetic charms, 
stand first in the rank of teachers. Their stanzas di- 
rect our attention to the beauty which environs us, so 
that the song of a lark and the light of a star add to our 
happiness, and, what is of much greater importance, 
they teach lessons of humanity, and bind the brother- 
hood of the human family with the silken cords of 
sympathy and love. We speak of Mr. Hayne as a 
Southern poet, but the spirit of poetry comes down 
from Heaven, and can not be fenced in by Mason and 
Dixon lines, any more than the summer wind, or the 
song of birds can be confined by the invisible lines of 
latitude and longitude. He who cramps and chokes his 
muse with merely local music mistakes his vocation. 



286 Representative Men. 

The true poet is the apostle of gectheticism in the broad 
sense ; he preaches the gospel of beauty, and all who 
have the brains and the heart to understand and appre- 
ciate his teachings, become better citizens and wiser 
Christians. Their patriotism will expand until it arches, 
like a bow of glory, the entire horizon of humanity. 



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